Elderly passenger handcuffed, escorted off Cathay flight for ‘disruptive behaviour’: carrier
A spokesman says no passengers or staff were injured in the incident, and the man did not comply despite being warned by cabin crew
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Published: 4:16pm, 12 Oct 2024Updated: 4:28pm, 12 Oct 2024
An elderly passenger was handcuffed and escorted off a Cathay Pacific Airways’ flight by American law enforcement after the plane landed in San Francisco, Hong Kong’s flag carrier has confirmed citing his disruptive behaviour on board.
Cathay said on Saturday that the passenger’s unruly conduct on flight CX872, which flew from Hong Kong to San Francisco on October 9, had affected the safety of other passengers.
“Despite a verbal warning from the cabin crew, the disruptive behaviour persisted. A written warning was also issued and local enforcement was notified to accompany the customer to disembark from the flight on arrival,” the carrier’s spokesman said in a written reply to the Post.
No passengers or staff were injured in the incident, while the individual concerned will be barred from any Cathay group flights in the future due to his conduct, according to the company.
“The safety of our customers and crew guides every decision we make,” the spokesman added.
The airline company did not give details of the arrested passenger.
A video posted on mainland Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu showed that a man was handcuffed and escorted by at least two local officers, who bore the US Customs and Border Protection Police tag on their back.
The man was first heard yelling in Cantonese asking what crime he had committed, then in Mandarin for where he would be taken to.
“Help! Do you have any evidence?” the man said in Mandarin.
Macau Jing Jiang, the internet user who posted the video, said that all passengers waited for around 20 minutes before they were asked to depart the cabin.
“The man was handcuffed and put in the rear of the plane after another passenger reported to the police for something. Maybe a dispute, I assumed,” she said in the video.
She added that after she left the cabin, she saw the one who called the police had been consulted by local officers.
The Post has contacted her for comment.
In another video reposted in an article by a local media outlet, the man handcuffed said he did not violate any law in Cantonese, adding he was more than 80 years old.
An insider familiar with the company told the Post earlier that there was a four-tier threat level system to report any unusual passenger behaviour under internal Cathay guidelines.
The four levels of rising seriousness are disruptive behaviour, physically abusive behaviour, life-threatening behaviour and attempted breach of the flight deck.
The handling of a disruptive passenger involves issuing a verbal warning and telling the commander. If needed, with the commander’s consent, a written warning will be issued.
A passenger should be restrained and handed over to police at the destination airfield for detention or prosecution, if his behaviour threatens aircraft safety.
If an unruly passenger is offloaded, local Cathay security staff will decide whether to involve police. The level of support from these authorities at the landing port will vary based on local practices.
Last month, Cathay blacklisted two Cantonese-speaking passengers who harassed a mainland traveller on a London-bound flight.
The mainland traveller said on Xiaohongshu that she was kicked and verbally abused by the couple seated behind her after she reclined her seat.
