A series of somewhat unfortunate events experienced by one male passenger onboard a Kunming Airlines flight on Thursday led to him throwing a mid-air tantrum, and eventually, his detention.
The passenger, surnamed Fan, reportedly threw his drink and some garbage at cabin crew on the flight from Hangzhou to Kunming because the airline ‘had refused to fulfill his requests’, the Global Times reports.
Tempers first flared when Fan refused to turn off his cellphone while taxiing despite repeated requests from cabin attendants, reported aviation website carnoc.com. He then shouted at cabin crew for passing him while giving out in-flight meals because he was sleeping.
Fan then accidentally spilled a drink on his pants and requested a female attendant to help him to clean it up. He later demanded she help him change his pants.
Fan was escorted out of the plane and taken into police custody immediately after arriving in Kunming. He served five days in detention for disturbing public order, although many web users called for more severe punishment, considering he had sexually harassed one of the female stewardesses.
A number of travelers have made headlines in the past year for their mid-flight meltdowns over relatively mundane issues. An artist from the mainland was fined 6,000 HKD in April after he threw a plastic cup at a Cathay Pacific stewardess because she failed to bring him a cup of water at a satisfactory speed. In February, a passenger was escorted from a Shanghai Airlines flight in handcuffs because he refused to leave the window seat, which had been assigned to someone else.
In an attempt to curb unsavory behavior by Chinese travelers, the country’s National Tourism Administration announced earlier this year that it would blacklist misbehaving tourists. Only four people have since been blacklisted, including the woman who threw a cup of steaming hot instant noodles at a stewardess on an AirAsia flight over seating arrangements.
[Image via Wikipedia]