To the community of Comox Valley,
I was recently on a flight from Edmonton home to the Comox airport. Prior to the flight in the Edmonton airport I had been drinking and I had exceeded my limit before boarding the plane. Seeing as I had been working for a month straight I would have been fine with having one or two drinks but I continued on and started to act foolishly. I continued to drink on the plane until I engaged in an argument with one of the crew members about how I was behaving. Under the influence of alcohol, I had stolen one of the small bottles of alcohol from the serving cart as it came down the aisle. When confronted by the crew I continued to deny doing this.
Soon after landing, the police arrived and I was escorted off the plane and taken to the police station. The airline immediately banned me from flying with the airline for 12 months. As well as I was suspended from my current job.
After my arrest, the police and the airline gave me the option of having the case referred to the Community Justice Centre for a Restorative Justice resolution conference. During that resolution conference the airline representative explained the many consequences of my actions for airline safety. I came to realize that this definitely had a negative effect on everyone aboard the plane that day, affecting the safety and the comfort of the other passengers, the risk to crew members, and the financial compensation the airline had to pay for some of the distressed passengers. I also realized how it would have impacted their friends, families and members of the community.
Flying can be stressful enough for most people without the added tension of seeing a potentially dangerous passenger-crew dispute while travelling. I now see the ripple effects of my behaviour and I am so very sorry for my actions.
I would like to apologize to everyone aboard the plane that day and everyone else negatively impacted by these actions. As a result of my resolution conference, I am writing this apology to the whole community in the hopes that others will see how my thoughtless actions have impacted so many others. I am so very sorry for this and you can be confident that this will never happen again. I hope others can learn from my mistakes and that air travel will continue to be safe for everyone.
Editor’s note: This letter was written anonymously as a condition of a settlement reached with the help of the Comox Valley Community Justice Centre.
