A passenger in China caused a commotion by refusing a flight attendant’s request to sit upright, resulting in over 2 hours of flight delay as they remained lying down.
According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) and the Hongxing News in China on the 23rd, the incident occurred on flight GT 1013 of Air Guilin, which was set to depart from Guilin Airport to Jinan in the afternoon of the 16thWhenas the female passenger boarded the plane, she lay across two seats she had booked in advance.
The flight attendants asked her to sit upright in her seat and fasten her seat belt as per regulations, but she refused, claiming she was in pain and could not sit up, reported Chinese media.
The flight attendants even called the airport police and asked her to disembark if she couldn’t sit, but she stubbornly neither sat up nor got off. Other passengers also requested her to disembark, but she didn’t budge.
The plane finally could depart only after she complied with the crew’s request, sat upright, and fastened her seat belt. As a result, the flight was delayed by more than 2 hours and 30 minutes. The Chinese aviation authorities are currently investigating the incident.
The incident has sparked outrage among local netizens as videos and photos from the scene spread online. One netizen criticized her for being “extremely shameless and causing inconvenience to other passengers.” Other netizens echoed this sentiment, saying, “If she was in pain, she shouldn’t have boarded the plane,” and “The police should have acted quickly to minimize the damage to other passengers.”
Meanwhile, flight delays frequently happen in China due to the sudden actions or rude behavior of nuisance passengers.
On the 6th of last month, China Southern Airlines flight CZ8805, scheduled to fly from Sanya in Hainan Province to Beijing, was delayed for over 4 hours because a passenger threw coins at the aircraft engine.
In early June 2021, when COVID-19 was rampant, a flight in China had to return to the gate just before takeoff because a passenger falsely claimed to be a COVID-19-positive case.
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