Nicola Artley (pictured) claims she was acting in self-defence when she was filmed brawling in Alicante airport after a Ryanair flight
The ‘drunk’ Ryanair passenger who went on a two-hour rampage after attacking a man on a flight and wrestling with another woman on the airport floor claims she was acting in self-defence.
Nicola Artley was filmed shouting and screaming on board a flight from Newcastle to Alicante before further footage shows her brawling with a fellow passenger next to baggage reclaim at the Spanish airport.
Now the 42-year-old has spoken out about the footage, admitting she was ‘loud’ and did drink beer and vodka before going on the flight.
But the mother-of-three claims she did not instigate the trouble and that another passenger had thrown a drink over her first.
Ms Artley said she has also received a barrage of abuse online after the video was published but that it is unfair because the whole episode was not caught on camera.
She said: ‘I apologise to anyone on that plane if I was being loud. But I wasn’t being abusive until I was attacked.
‘The video on most websites only shows what happened after I was punched and had a drink thrown over me. I was defending myself.’
She added that she takes a lot of medication, including antidepressants and sleeping tablets, which may have affected her behaviour.
‘I had been awake since 5am. I had had a drink, but all I’d had was two pints and two shots of vodka,’ she said.
Ms Artley who sparked chaos on a Ryanair flight and at Alicante airport in Spain has said she did not start the trouble (pictured, left and right)
‘I was probably being loud and I did get into an argument, but it wasn’t me who was violent first.’
Ms Artley claimed that another passenger had thrown a drink over her and hit her and insisted the viral videos merely captures her reaction.
She claimed her finger was bitten during the incident – which carried on into the airport – and as a result she was now taking antibiotics.
She added: ‘If you watch all the other videos, people are screaming and shouting at me. It was like a mob. People were cheering as I was attacked in the airport.
In the footage, the two women are seen yanking each other’s hair and rolling around the floor as they grappled with one another in front of shocked passengers waiting for their luggage.
A woman in a green dress is straddling Ms Artley, who is wearing a yellow t-shirt.
She is then heard screaming with her legs flailing in the air as the other woman pins her down on the floor.
The brawl gets so out of control that the two women eventually had to be prised apart by a bystander.
The mother-of-three (left and right) claims she did not instigate the trouble and that another passenger had thrown a drink over her first
The two women were seen pulling each other’s hair while rolling around the floor and screaming at one another at baggage reclaim at Alicante Airport, Spain
Footage also emerged last week of Ms Artley on the flight, shouting and screaming before throwing punches at a fellow passenger.
Witnesses say she was due to be met by police in Spain following the mid-air attack, but was apparently allowed to wander solo through the airport where the second incident took place.
According to Rachel Burns, 35, who had been on the same flight as the two women, Ms Artley was ‘intoxicated’.
The mother-of-three, from Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, said: ‘It was unbelievable. At the airport the police had already seen her and let her go.
‘When we got into the baggage collection area that’s when the violence started.
‘I was with my family, we’d got our bags and had been walking away and then they got stuck into it.
‘I saw her just go up to a lady who had been one of the people telling her to sit down. Then they were going at it on the floor.
‘It went on for a couple of minutes. She just seemed intoxicated. She was very, very drunk. Some man tried to pull her off, then she started again.’
According to witness Rachel Burns, 35, who had been on the same flight as the two women, Ms Artley (let and right) was ‘intoxicated’
The fight continued until other passers-by intervened and pulled the two women apart
Ms Burns added that the security was ‘shocking’.
‘It was an absolute shambles,’ she said. ‘She just left. She was with two friends, they seemed mortified and were crying.
‘Then we left, we just needed to get the children away from it.’
She added: ‘It’s shocking that she’d even been able to get on the plane in the first place, let alone get to that point in the airport.’
Ms Burns claims the woman was drunk while they were on the plane and had been aggressive towards her fellow passengers for around an hour-and-a-half.
She claims the woman even directed her slurs at her mother, who was travelling with her, calling her an ‘old hag’.
In a video of the original brawl on board the flight, men and women aboard the Newcastle to Alicante Ryanair flight can be seen scrapping over the tops of seats
Arms can be seen flailing in both directions as fellow passengers attempt to stop the unseemly fracas
Ms Burns, who was who was taking her flight one-way to move out to Spain with her family, said: ‘On the flight she was leathered.
‘The staff and other people on the plane kept telling her to sit down. The plane staff said they hadn’t served her alcohol.
‘She was sat two rows behind me, and she started getting really aggressive with people in front of her, f-ing and blinding and saying ‘What you looking at?’
‘Then she started fighting with the man in front, and started getting aggressive with the lady asking her to move. The plane staff couldn’t control her.
‘The people she was attacking got moved to the front of the plane.
‘She called my mum an ‘old hag’ so that’s when I started shouting at her as well, saying ‘Don’t call my mum that’.’
‘It was all going on for about an hour and a half.’
Ms Burns said she is appalled that this sort of behaviour can be allowed to take place in an airport.
‘It’s just something you don’t expect to see there. And especially in mid-air on the plane too. It could have been much worse, and you don’t want the children to see it,’ she said.
‘I just don’t think drinking should be allowed on planes.’
Ryanair said the fight justifies the airline’s call for changes to the sale of alcohol at airports. The firm’s head of communications, Robin Kiely, said it was important to introduce a two-drink limit for each passenger and also a ban on alcohol sales before 10am
A spokesman for Ryanair said: ‘The crew of this flight from Newcastle to Alicante (31 Aug) requested police assistance upon arrival after a passenger became disruptive inflight.
‘The aircraft landed normally and the passenger was met by police. We will not tolerate unruly or disruptive behaviour at any time and the safety and comfort of our customers, crew and aircraft is our number one priority.
‘This passenger has been banned from flying with Ryanair and this is now a matter for local police.
‘This is exactly why we are calling for significant changes to prohibit the sale of alcohol at airports, such as a two-drink limit per passenger and no alcohol sales before 10am.
‘It’s incumbent on the airports to introduce these preventative measures to curb excessive drinking and the problems it creates, rather than allowing passengers to drink to excess before their flights.’
Aena, the airport network to which Alicante Airport belongs, declined to comment.
Airport police and Guardia Civil were contacted for comment but have yet to respond.