Chinese air passenger demands cabin crew open door during refuelling stop so he can smoke
Row erupts on Orient Thai Airlines headed from Bangkok to Phuket, but other travellers intervene and stop man’s tirade
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 20 December, 2015, 8:16pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 20 December, 2015, 8:16pm
Laura Zhou
[email protected]
A video appeared online that purportedly shows the man aboard Orient Thai Airlines Flight 8223. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A Chinese passenger on Thai flight got into a row with cabin crew when they refused to open a flight door so he could smoke during a refuelling stop, mainland media reported.
Orient Thai Airlines Flight 8223 left Bangkok for Phuket on Friday, but weather concerns forced the pilots to divert and land at Surat Thani Airport, about 200km north of the destination, Shanghai-based Dragon TV reported yesterday.
While the plane was refuelling, the Chinese passenger walked approached the flight staff and demanded they open the door, the report said.
After they denied, [he] began to rail against the flight attendants,” said a technology company executive who posted details of the incident on his Weibo and quoted by the TV report.
“Fortunately some warm-hearted passengers stepped in and stopped the disaster.”
A short video clip of the incident filmed on a mobile phone has gone viral. It shows a the man, dressed in a black shirt, who appears to argue with flight attendants near the door. After they refuse his request, he turns back and begins to make a phone call.
Orient Thai did not immediately respond to inquiries from the South China Morning Post .
Bad behaviour by some mainland holidaymakers overseas regularly make headlines on the mainland and in international media.
The country’s tourism authorities launched a blacklist for travellers who act in especially egregious fashion, although the specific punishment was never been made public.
In another recent episode, graffiti written in Chinese was scratched on the passenger windows of a Shanghai Airlines plane, photos posted online appeared to show.
In another case, a Chinese professor was sacked by his university in Chengdu, Sichuan province after he kicked up a fuss on a Shanghai to New York flight after he tried to “self-upgrade” his seat.
He was escorted off the flight before it departed.
