Chinese passenger throws hot water at cabin staff, forcing Thai flight to return
An Air Asia flight carrying passengers from Thailand to China was forced to return to Bangkok after a Chinese passenger threw hot water at a cabin attendant, the airline said today (Dec 13).
Thai AirAsia Flight FD9101 had departed Bangkok’s northern airport Don Mueang for Nanjing at 5.55 pm on Thursday (Dec 11) with 174 passengers and six crew on board.
It was forced to turn back after a passenger attacked a steward.
The airline said in statement:
“During the flight, a Chinese female passenger was not satisfied with the service...
When the cabin attendant came she threw hot water at the cabin attendant.”
An official said the woman and her travelling companion were initially angered at not being seated together.
Other passengers moved seats allowing them to sit side by side but the pair started to argue with each other before the attack took place.
Four Chinese passengers detained
The captain of the flight, which was still in Thai airspace at the time, decided to return to Don Mueang - where four Chinese passengers were ejected and detained at a police station.
The flight departed Don Mueang again at 10.45 pm on the same day and arrived in Nanjing on Friday morning.
The airline official said police fined the Chinese passengers, adding that they left the country on Friday.
The cabin attendant received first aid on board from colleagues and is fine, the official added.
China has seen rapid growth in outbound trips in recent years, and Chinese travellers are now the biggest source of international tourism cash in the world, according to a the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
Chinese tourists' embarrassing behaviour abroad
But the behaviour of some Chinese tourists overseas has caused embarrassment at home.
In May 2013, furious netizens tracked down a Chinese tourist after it emerged that he had defaced an ancient Egyptian monument.
The same month, a top Chinese official said the dire manners and “uncivilised behaviour” of some Chinese tourists overseas were harming the country’s image.
Source: AFP
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