An Irishman travelling to Dublin was removed from a Ryanair flight after becoming "disruptive" before the plane had even departed.
Spanish police escorted the individual from the aircraft at Alicante Airport on Monday after they were alerted by cabin crew.
The FR7063 flight was due to depart at 2.35pm local time but was delayed by around 40 minutes ahead of take-off "after a passenger became disruptive on board".
Other people on the flight to Dublin Airport are said to have been "afraid" after the man, who appeared to be intoxicated, began displaying worrying behaviour on board.
One passenger was travelling with his wife who was sitting opposite the unruly passenger.
As they were not sitting together, she recounted to him how the man took his trousers off shortly after sitting down and subsequently became more disorderly.
"Nobody noticed anything when he got on, he didn't seem too bad but when he sat down he got up and took off his trousers," he told the Irish Mirror.
"[My wife] said that he said to the woman beside him that he gets very hot on the plane, and then she said to me, 'I kind of copped then he was under the weather'.
"He had bottles on his lap, maybe four or five litres of spirits, and the stewardess asked to take them off him because she wanted to stow them up safely.
"But he wouldn't let them go, he said they were presents and they weren't taking them and he got a bit hysterical then.
"Then they called the other cabin steward and he came down and they were just trying to pacify him and he got a bit abusive then and told them he couldn't take his stuff and he had rights."
The doors to the aircraft had already been closed at this stage, with cross-check completed and the plane ready to pull away from the stand.
While the man had put on his trousers again at this point, someone then "made the decision" to have him removed from the plane "as he refused to cooperate with anything", the passenger added.
"As [my wife] was saying from chatting with people afterwards, thank God they got him off because if he was like that now, what would he have been like in an hour's time into the flight," he said.
"[The cabin crew] handled it extremely well, there was no big bust-up, there was no violence.
"It was three policemen who came on first, then there was another three, so I don't know whether they thought he was going to get rough or not."
As he was being escorted from the plane, the man then made "a big deal about a suitcase" which led to more delays.
However, it emerged that he had not in fact placed any luggage in the hold.
While people were mostly "peed off" by the incident, they were also worried about whether the situation could escalate, he explained.
"People were afraid, they were more afraid of what could have happened if the stewardess had not intervened because he was getting lairy," he said.
"He wasn't threatening anyone...but you never know, if it was an hour into the flight it would have been twice as bad."
After the man was removed from the aircraft, the flight departed Alicante and subsequently landed in Dublin Airport at 5.03pm local time, just 23 minutes later than scheduled.
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “This flight from Alicante to Dublin (07 February) was delayed ahead of take-off after a passenger became disruptive on board.
"Crew alerted local police who removed the passenger from the aircraft, and the flight departed following a short delay of approx. 40 mins. Ryanair apologises to affected passengers for this delay.”
