To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many incidents classified as air rage there have been on UK carriers in each year since 1990; and if he will make a statement. [76949]

Under the Mandatory Occurrence Report Scheme currently established by article 106 of the Air Navigation (No. 2) Order 1995, the commander of a UK registered or operated aircraft must report to the Civil Aviation Authority any incident

"endangering, or if not corrected would endanger, the aircraft, its occupants or any other person".

The CAA's MORS database does not have a classification of "air rage" and it is therefore not possible to provide the figures requested. However, we have recently reviewed the 1997 MORS reports relating to passenger behaviour. This revealed some 88 incidents of disruptive behaviour by passengers which had actual or potential safety implications. Of these, some 24 incidents involved physical violence or the need by the crew to restrain a passenger.It is because of the lack of accurate information on the scale of the problem that we have established a new system for airlines to report to the CAA all incidents of disruptive behaviour by passengers on board UK aircraft. The first figures from this new reporting system should be available later this year.