We get this sort of story fairly often, in the UAE.

Dubai has one of the world’s primary transit airports. People going from Europe or even Africa to Asia or Australia. The traveller stops and changes planes. And Abu Dhabi, a 90-minute drive south of Dubai’s airport, is not far behind in the transit race.

So. All these cultures. All these nationalities. Circulating through UAE airports — or airports before flying to the UAE. And some of them are nervous or depressed or just stupid, and they act out on a plane.

The latest? The Ukrainian sailor.

The National has the details in this story. And, really, we seem to have at least one of these per week.

Ukrainian sailor gets on an Emirates plane in Singapore. He probably was drunk already. He certainly was 90 minutes after the flight departed.

He got up and began moving around. Twice, he tried to open the door to the flight deck. The pilot ordered he be tied to his seat.

Unless passengers intervened, and we can only guess at the agitation among the passengers, with a 28-year-old drunken idiot roaming up and down the aisles, knocking things over, calling for more vodka. (OK, I may have embellished a little there, compared to the rather spare news story. We don’t know what he was drinking.)

But he was tied down, eventually, and we need to give credit to the flight crew for making that happen. Perhaps with some help from civilians. Probably a big plane, and lots of crew, but three large men in close would have a better chance of subduing an incredibly hammered sailor than would six or seven smallish women.

Anyway, they got it done, but not before the sailor was fondling some of the flight crew, and trying to kiss another.

He was handed over to the authorities upon the plane’s arrival, in Dubai, and this week he was sentenced to a year in jail, here in the UAE, and fined a nominal amount. And, is usually the case for foreigners jailed in the UAE, will be deported the moment he leaves prison.

Makes you wonder about alcohol on planes.

Yes, X percent of people drinking (95 percent, maybe?) are self-medicating. They are afraid to fly and alcohol dulls the fear, or they hope it will help them sleep, or make the cramped conditions in that metal tube more bearable.

But for that 1 percent, it leads to deeply inebriated passengers who often become unruly. And then you have, say, a Ukrainian sailor roaming the aisles, trying to get into the cockpit, alarming everyone on the plane … finally tied down by harried crew.

Maybe handing out sleeping pills before takeoff would make more sense and lead to less drama.