A Thomson flight, en route from Bristol to Sharm el Sheikh, diverted to Athens after a phone call was received claiming a bomb was on board.

22 APRIL       TAIPEI

TransAsia Airways’ Kaohsiung branch office received a call from a man who said that his friend was unhappy with the airline and that he would be taking a bomb with him on a flight from Kaohsiung to one of the outlying islands.

24 APRIL       BRUSSELS

A Wizzair flight bound for Sofia was delayed for three hours because of a bomb threat.

29 APRIL       NEW YORK

Christian Boncorps, 61, allegedly told an Air France ticket agent at JFK that “My name is bin Laden, and I have a bomb in my bag” when checking in for his flight to Paris. Boncorps was charged with filing a false report and later fined $250.

29 APRIL       EL CALAFATE, CALIFORNIA

An Aerolineas Argentinas flight en route from Buenos Aires to El Calafate was the target of a bomb threat.

8 MAY           ALBUQUERQUE

A Delta Air Lines flight from Detroit to San Diego was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

14 MAY         HO CHI MINH CITY

Mariano Francois Xavier Jean Agostini, 27, was arrested on boarding a Vietnam Airlines to Da Nang after he was overheard telling a Vietnamese woman that he had a bomb in his cabin baggage.

15 MAY         RHODE ISLAND

A woman was escorted off a Mesaba Airlines flight departing T.F. Green Airport after she allegedly made a threatening comment.

16 MAY         ISTANBUL

A passenger booked on a Turkish Airlines flight to Stuttgart made a bomb threat after he arrived late for the flight and was denied boarding.

17 MAY         FLORIDA

David Michael Smith, 37, allegedly made a bomb threat at Southwest Florida International Airport.

18 MAY         MELBOURNE

The Australian media were sent letters threatening attacks at both Avalon and Tullamarine airports.

19 MAY         TEREVAN, ARMENIA

A man claimed that there was a bomb at Yerevan’s Zvartnots Airport resulting in the terminal being evacuated.

22 MAY         YEREVAN, ARMENIA

An anonymous caller claimed that there was a bomb on board an aircraft preparing to depart Yerevan Zvartnots Airport for Amsterdam.

25 MAY         SURABAYA, INDONESIA

Garuda Airlines received a threat by fax citing both Surabaya and Jakarta’s airports. In Surabaya’s departure lounge, a suspicious package was found containing liquids.

A passenger, 59, who had threatened to kill the police officers who arrested him and blow up the Emirates flight from which he was offloaded  before its departure from London Heathrow to Dubai, pleaded guilty in court.

5 APRIL         MELBOURNE

Raymond Lawson pleaded guilty to threatening the safety of a Singapore Airlines flight, en route from Singapore to Melbourne, by claiming to represent the fictitious Australian Liberation Army.

11 APRIL       DUBLIN

A former Aer Lingus flight attendant, Miguel Saez Sanchez, appeared in court to fight his dismissal for an incident on a flight on 20 March 2009. It is alleged that the night before the flight he drank a number of vodkas and ate a pot brownie and that, in-flight, he became delusional. Sanchez thought he was being photographed by the plane’s passengers who he believed were “plants” by the airline. He then told a crew member that he could feel fleas and lice on his body.

11 APRIL       OTTAWA

John Robert Laponsée was arrested at Ottawa airport after a .22-calibre handgun was found in his luggage.

12 APRIL       DENVER

Noel Bertrand, 26, was arrested for allegedly raping a 22-year-old transit passenger on the floor of a deserted Denver Airport concourse. The victim was spending the night at the airport because she had missed a connecting flight and didn’t have enough money for a hotel; she suffered bruises to her legs and a black eye. In a TV interview, she said the attack lasted ten minutes, during which time two janitors walked past, including a woman, but they had looked away and done nothing.

12 APRIL       PRESTWICK

A policeman, Jamie Dodman, was arrested after allegedly trying to board a flight carrying a lock-knife in his luggage.

12 APRIL       NEWARK

Ramesh Advani, 64, pleaded guilty to groping a sleeping woman on a Continental flight from Hong Kong to Newark last May.

14 APRIL       MELBOURNE

Khairulddin Mohammad Yahya, 22, was fined AU$1500 for swearing at and assaulting a flight attendant on a Malaysian Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne on 22 July 2010.

14 APRIL       CHELMSFORD, UK

James Glen, 38, was jailed for three years for a making a bomb threat on board an Etihad flight from Melbourne to Heathrow via Abu Dhabi, on 24 January, which resulted in the flight landing at Stansted. As the aircraft flew over the British coast, Glen had told the crew that a fellow passenger had a bomb and had threatened him with a gun and demanded £20,000.

15 APRIL       BUDAPEST

An Israeli air force officer was arrested after a handgun and ammunition was discovered in his bags as he attempted to check in for an American Airlines flight to the States whilst in transit from Israel.

18 APRIL       QUEENSTOWN, NEW ZEALAND

A 52 year old woman repeatedly caused an archway metal detector to alarm. She had stuffed about 50g of cannabis into 28 individually foil-wrapped cannabis bullets inside her bra.

26 APRIL       ONTARIO

Daniel J. Fonseca, 41, was arrested at Ontario International Airport for possessing a collapsible police baton in his carry-on luggage before he tried to board a flight to Oakland.

26 APRIL       BANGKOK

Mozawi Mazum, 27, was arrested on arrival off a Mahan Air flight from Tehran for drug smuggling after customs officials found crystal methamphetamine worth about 1.5 million Thai baht in packages in his stomach. Transmission X-ray revealed 56 packages of the drug, weighing a total 430g.

3 MAY           MIAMI

Orville Braham, 38, was sentenced to six months in federal prison for the transport of explosive and hazardous materials through Miami Airport in December 2010. At the time, he was travelling from Boston to Jamaica with around 1,700 bullet primers concealed in the lining of his luggage.

5 MAY           HANOI

Nguyen Bang Viet, 37, a former flight attendant with Vietnam Airlines Corp, was charged with making a bomb threat by sending text messages to the mobile phone of the chief attendant on a flight preparing to leave Vietnam for Cambodia in October 2010.

9 MAY           VANCOUVER

Two security screeners and a third man were arrested on drug trafficking charges after one of the men was found with 14.77 kilograms of ecstasy in his backpack in an area past the security section of the U.S. departures area.

10 MAY         MEXICO CITY

Jose Marc Flores Pereira, a Bolivian pastor, was sentenced to seven years, seven months and 15 days and fined $1,000 for the 2009 hijacking of a flight en route from Cancun to Mexico City. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 10,905 Mexican pesos ($937) as well as 738,222 Mexican pesos ($63,450) to Aeromexico, the owner of the hijacked airplane.

13 MAY         LUTON, UK

Dariusz Tkaczyk, 21, was given a six month sentence suspended for 18 months for having caused a major security alert when a chemical leaked from his holdall in the baggage area at Luton Airport on 23 July 2010.

16 MAY         HYDERABAD

Prabhu Chavhan was detained at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport for carrying a revolver in his cabin baggage.

16 MAY         CALIFORNIA

An American Airlines employee was found with a loaded Smith & Wesson .38-calibre gun in his carry-on bag as he prepared to board a flight to Dallas.

18 MAY         FLORIDA

Alberto Cintron, who had a gun in his luggage as he tried to board an airplane in Daytona Beach last September, was sentenced to 47 months in prison.

26 MAY         NEW YORK

Kareem Ibrahim, 65, was convicted on five counts of conspiracy for his role in the 2007 plot to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport

27 MAY         HONG KONG
Hong Kong police arrested Shen Yan, a senior banker at Deutsche Bank, after a gun was found in his luggage.

29 MAY         LOS ANGELES

Lanica Johnson, 32, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after she threatened police and resisted arrest.

31 MAY         GUANTANAMO BAY

The U.S. Defence Department files charges of terrorism and murder against alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and four other alleged co-conspirators. The charges against them allege that they were responsible for planning the attacks that sent hijacked planes into the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people in 2001. Prosecutors have recommended that the trial be a capital case, which could bring the death penalty.

An American Airlines flight, en route from Dallas Ft. Worth to Paris, diverted due to a disruptive passenger on board.

18 APRIL       REYKJAVIK

Disruptive behaviour on board a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Chicago to Warsaw, that involved a flight attendant being hit in the face, resulted in the Captain electing to divert to Reykjavik.

18 APRIL       DA NANG, VIETNAM

A Vietnam Airlines flight from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City diverted to Da Nang due to bad weather. On the ground, Le Minh Khuong, the head coach of the Vietnam national Taekwondo team, asked to disembark but his request was denied. It is alleged he then became unruly, upgraded himself to Business Class and occupied another passenger’s (who photographed him in it) seat; he was eventually forcibly escorted off the aircraft by Da Nang airport security staff. Le Minh Khuong later claimed he was assaulted and planned to sue the airline.

18 APRIL       ISLAMABAD

Sajid Saleem was arrested on his arrival off a PIA flight from Karachi for assaulting a flight attendant who had repeatedly told him to put his cigarette out.

24 APRIL       SALT LAKE CITY

Timothy Keith Ohlsson, 39, was arrested on his arrival in Salt Lake City off a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles on which he is alleged to have harassed a 15-year-old girl seated next to him.

24 APRIL       GLASGOW

An intoxicated Rangers football fan, on a Flybe flight from Glasgow to Belfast, became so aggressive that the flight had to divert. A new cabin crew had to be sent from Belfast because the crew were so shaken by the incident that they were unable to continue working.

26 APRIL       WINNIPEG

Michele Jules Ego, 73, from Reunion Island, was arrested and charged with ignoring safety instructions on a Winnipeg-bound flight. He was later given a $250 fine.

28 APRIL       NEW YORK

Iurii Chumak, 53, was arrested on arrival in New York for allegedly groping a British Airways flight attendant while she was serving him coffee. He is reported to have put his hand up her skirt when she turned away to serve passengers the other side of the aisle to him.
1 MAY           SYDNEY

Justin Bieber became the latest celebrity to become disruptive in the air when he decided to get out of his business class seat and wander towards the economy section of the plane at the same time as the Qantas plane was taking off from Sydney to Melbourne.

2 MAY                    KINGSTON, JAMAICA

A serious fight, resulting in £25,000 of damage to the aircraft, took place on Virgin Atlantic flight en route to Jamaica from London Gatwick. Jason Dixon, 32, and Danielle Bishop, 27, were arrested on arrival. Bishop claimed Dixon was pestering her with unwanted sexual attention. Dixon pleaded guilty to charges and was fined approx. £360 (or three months’ imprisonment) for the charge of malicious destruction of property and approx. £730 (or six months’ imprisonment) on the charge of being an unruly passenger on a flight. Bishop was released.

4 MAY           NEW YORK

An Orthodox rabbi, Gavriel Bidany, 48, stood trial for groping a female Israel Defence Forces officer on a Delta Airlines flight from Tel Aviv. The Lieutenant had fallen asleep with her head on the tray table and she later testified that she later awoke to find the man’s hand massaging her crotch and breasts. The rabbi pretended to be dozing and feigned innocence. He was later sentenced to 60 days in prison.

4 MAY           DELHI

Kuldeep Singh Barm was arrested on his arrival in Delhi off an Air India flight from Amritsar on which he allegedly misbehaved with an air hostess by grabbing her hand and uttering obscenities while she was serving passengers.

7 MAY           COPENHAGEN

A Norwegian Air Shuttle flight, en route from Oslo to Larnaca, diverted to Copenhagen due to the behaviour of four passengers on board.

8 MAY           CHICAGO

Rageh Ahmed Mohammed Al-Murisi allegedly tried to break into the cockpit of an American Airlines flight en route from Chicago to San Francisco. The flight attendant thought he had mistaken the flight deck door for the restroom when she saw him trying to open the door, but when she redirected him he reportedly started shouting “Allahu Akbar” and tried to break in more aggressively.

8 MAY           ST. LOUIS

Reynel Alcaide, 34, allegedly tried to open the door of a Continental Airlines flight, en route from Houston to Chicago, with a view to committing suicide. The flight diverted to St. Louis.

9 MAY           DUBLIN

A woman had to be restrained on an Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi to Dublin when she tried to open the aircraft’s door.

10 MAY         MINNEAPOLIS

Megan Biersach, 23, became angry when a gate agent refused to let her board her flight to Salt Lake City because she was drunk. Police were called and she spat at and bit an officer, telling him that she had AIDS and rabies. Biersach was due to be married the following week.

13 MAY         AMSTERDAM

A passenger on an easyJet flight from Krakow to Edinburgh allegedly tried to open a door. The pilot diverted to Amsterdam.

14 MAY         NEW YORK

A JetBlue flight from New York to Santo Domingo returned to New York when a passenger (reportedly a TSA screener) insisted on sitting in a crew seat.

19 MAY         DENVER

Kyle Pearce, 25, was arrested for allegedly masturbating on a United Airlines flight to Denver. An 18-year-old girl seated next to him witnessed the act and claimed that he had ejaculated before disappearing to the bathroom. The passenger in the seat behind had also seen what happened and later reported that he had hit Pearce in the arm with his book to try to get him to stop.

20 MAY         MEMPHIS

Bryan Sisco, 40, was arrested, and later banned from flying Delta for life, for boasting to a female passenger that he was flirting with on a flight from Dallas to Atlanta that he had a gas canister which could put everyone onboard to sleep.

20 MAY         SALVADOR, BRAZIL

A passenger, aged 45, on a TAM flight, en route from Porto Seguro to Salvador, claimed that he would blow the plane up.

21 MAY         NEW YORK

The former head of the IMF, who was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a hotel chambermaid, is reported to have said ‘Quel beau cul’ (what a cute bottom!) to the flight attendant of the Air France flight he had boarded to leave New York on. Police boarded the aircraft and Dominique Strauss-Kahn was escorted off.

24 MAY         WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND

A Jetstar flight en route to Auckland returned to Wellington due to fog. Police were called to the aircraft due to Martin Devlin, 46, allegedly becoming unruly. Devlin is a known broadcaster in NZ.

29 MAY         WASHINGTON

A United Airlines flight en route from Washington Dulles to Accra returned to Washington after a fight broke out between two passengers when a passenger reclined his seat and the passenger sitting behind objected and slapped the back of the head of the individual reclining the seat.  The aircraft returned to Washington. The authorities decided against pressing charges

31 MAY         BOSTON

Bryan Garnett, 48, was arrested for allegedly slapping a flight attendant on a JetBlue flight from West Palm Beach to Boston. The case was thrown out of court as the alleged incident had taken place while the plane was on the ground in Florida and was, therefore, outside the court’s jurisdiction.

As the country descended towards civil war, the French army took control over Ivory Coast’s main international airport.

6 APRIL         MELBOURNE

The Qantas domestic terminal at Melbourne Airport was evacuated after a security breach into the restricted zone.

8 APRIL         CLEVELAND

The airport had to be evacuated due to a screening technology failure.

12 APRIL       EL ALTO, BOLIVIA

Hundreds of teachers blocked roads linking El Alto to La Paz as part of their union action.

18 APRIL       KILLEEN-FORT HOOD

An inert training aid left in a black Chevrolet Silverado, that had been returned to a car rental company by an explosives instructor, resulted in the lockdown of Killeen-Fort Hood Regional Airport.

19 APRIL      SYDNEY

A security breach resulted in the terminal being evacuated and forcing all passengers to be rescreened.

21 APRIL       DALLAS

The former Miss USA, Susie Castillo, 31, made a YouTube video after going through the screening checkpoint at Dallas/Fort Worth. In tears, she explained that, having declined to go through the body scanner, she had undergone a pat down search which she felt was excessive and claimed she was repeatedly touched inappropriately. On her blog, she wrote:  “Am I a threat to U.S. security? I was Miss USA, for Pete’s sake!”

25 APRIL       SYDNEY

In released WikiLeaks files, it emerged that a former Australian terror suspect, Mamdouh Habib, had told Egyptian interrogators that he was going to hijack a Qantas flight and had trained six of the 11^th September hijackers in martial arts. When questioned by US military officials at Guantanamo Bay in 2002, he said he had lied to the authorities in Egypt under duress. He was released without charge in 2005 and returned to Australia. Habib is now suing the Egyptian government, claiming he was tortured through electric shocks, cigarette burns, attack by dogs, sexual violation and water torture.

27 APRIL       TEL AVIV

An El Al flight bound for Frankfurt returned to the gate when a passenger overheard another say that there was a bomb on board.

29 APRIL       ENTEBBE, UGANDA

The arrest of Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye resulted in protesters burning tyres, throwing rocks and erecting burning barricades along the main road to Entebbe International Airport.

2 MAY           ABBOTTABAD, PAKISTAN

Osama bin Laden was killed during an operation conducted by US Navy SEALs and CIA operatives.

3 MAY           BUENOS AIRES

Employees of the private security company “Securitas” working at Ezeiza International Airport shut down the premises’ accesses in a demonstration to request better working conditions.

5 MAY           TEL AVIV

Israel halted most departures from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport due to contaminated fuel supplies. Foul play, although considered the cause, was eventually ruled out.

5 MAY           TIMEHRI, GUYANA

A ‘channa bomb’ was found in the men’s washroom used by immigration personnel at Cheddi Jagan International Airport. The discovery of the vodka bottle, filled with channa and gasoline, by a sink in the washroom was made by a Guyana Revenue Authority officer. ‘Channa bombs’ when lit and thrown are known to cause substantial damage.

11 MAY         ISLAY, INNER HEBRIDES, SCOTLAND

Islay Airport was evacuated after a computer being carried by a passenger tested positive for the presence of explosives.

16 MAY         HELSINKI

Pasi Nurminen, the Finnish national hockey team assistant coach, is alleged to have drunk a little too much on a flight back from a successful competition and collapsed on the tarmac on arrival at Helsinki airport.

24 MAY         CUSCO, PERU

A grenade and a stick of dynamite were discovered in a restroom in the terminal building at Cusco’s Alejandro Velasco Astete Airport.

A Pacific Blue flight, arriving in Auckland from Brisbane, was targeted by a laser.

24 APRIL       LOS ANGELES

Danny Anthony Lopez, 18, allegedly opened fire on a police helicopter forcing it to make an emergency landing at the nearby Van Nuys Airport after its fuel tank was hit. Lopez was firing the rifle because he was distraught over the death of a friend.

27 APRIL       KABUL

Ahmad Gul, a 48-year-old Afghan Air Force officer, shot dead eight International Security Assistance Force soldiers and a US contractor during a meeting in the operations room of the Afghan Air Corps on the military side of Kabul airport.

27 APRIL       BASEL-MULHOUSE, FRANCE

An air traffic controller, John Meyer, 34, was fatally stabbed in the throat, lung and chest on the 10^th floor of the air traffic control tower at Basel-Mulhouse airport where he was employed. The murder took place in a security restricted area. Police later issued a search warrant for Karim Ouali Aderfi, 34, a French Algerian man who had worked at the airport for 18 months and had been seen rushing away from the tower before another airport employee discovered Meyer’s body.

28 APRIL       IVATO, MADAGASCAR

It is suspected that sabotage was the cause of the technical problem that resulted in the private jet carrying Madagascar’s Highest Transitional Authority President Andry Rajoelina and members of his delegation to Zambia being forced to land.

10 MAY         BRUSSELS

An unlicensed taxi driver was shot by Police at Brussels Airport after he failed to stop at a checkpoint.

10 MAY         AHMEDABAD

A 10 kg gold parcel was stolen from a consignment of 200 kgs of gold held at the cargo facilities only minutes after the customs duty had been paid.

18 MAY         BASRA, IRAQ

Katusha rockets were fired at Basra International Airport.

22 MAY         CORK, EIRE

A man hijacked a police SUV near Cork Airport and drove it through the perimeter fence and then tried to drive it into an aircraft before jumping out of the vehicle and running at police armed with a kitchen knife. It is thought that he was trying to force the police to shoot him (otherwise known as “suicide by cops”). He was eventually arrested.

25 MAY         FRANKFURT

A man penetrated the security area of Frankfurt Airport and pointed a gas gun at German police officers.

26 MAY          BAGHDAD

Mortars were fired at Baghdad Airport, with at least five projectiles landing inside the airport perimeter.

30 MAY         PHOENIX, ARIZONA

Randon Reid, 26, was arrested for shooting at a grounded plane parked at Deer Valley Airport. It is believed he was intoxicated at the time of the incident.

Kazakhstan’s delegate to UNESCO, Valery Tolmachev, 48, attempted to hijack an Alitalia flight, which had departed Paris, to Tripoli, Libya. He was armed with a small knife with which he threatened a flight attendant. He was restrained in his seat and sedated by a doctor on board as the flight continued towards Rome Fiumicino where it landed normally.