First, a woman rants that her fellow passenger is “not real”, now, a man positively hurls himself at cabin crew to get off the plane – what the hell is going on with air travel?
Last week, the internet became obsessed with an American Airlines flight, on which a woman claimed everyone on board would “die” if they remained in the presence of an alleged spectre.
Just days later, a new video is doing the rounds showing a man having a similar meltdown, this time while travelling with Ryanair.
The clip shows the passenger screaming furiously at the person in the seat next to him, before leaping up, charging down the aisle, and demanding that staff “open the door” to the aircraft.
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A caption to the video, which was posted to Twitter on 6 July, reads: “A British man was allegedly disturbed so badly by the passenger sitting next to him on a plane, that he tried to open the door of the plane and leave.
“First a woman in US now this. What is going on?”
In this case, it turns out the man was not having an existential crisis about his co-passenger. Instead, his fellow travellers suggested he may have been under the influence of alcohol and, possibly, drugs.
He has been identified as a 27-year-old British boxer who was returning to the UK from Zadar, Croatia most likely after attending the Hideout electronic music festival.
The man was later filmed being escorted off the plane and dragged across the airport’s tarmac, EX-YU Aviation NewsAviation News reports.
Police in Zadar confirmed that a 27-year-old Brit had been arrested and that they had launched an investigation into the incident.
Commenting on the drama, Ryanair said in a statement: "This flight from Zadar to London Stansted returned to the stand when an individual passenger became disruptive while preparing for takeoff.
“The passenger was removed from the aircraft by local police before the flight continued safely to London Stansted.”
Now, let’s be honest, however bizarre the American Airlines rant was (and conspiracy theorists are still having a field day with it), air travel isn’t exactly known for bringing out the best in people.
Whilst, it’s true that most in-flight brawls and tantrums involve people who are widely accepted as “real”, they are rarely pretty but alarmingly common.
Indeed, on Monday, it emerged that a United Airlines flight from Houston, Texas to Amsterdam had to be diverted to Chicago because a business class passenger threw a tantrum over their inflight meal.
A Twitter user, called JonNYC, shared internal communications from the US airline stating that there was a “disruptive [passenger] on board”.
JonNYC also tweeted that the passenger “was noted to be intoxicated as well, but meal choice seems to have been an enragement point.”
In a statement to The Guardian, United Airlines confirmed that the culprit had been escorted off the plane.
They said: “United flight 20 from George Bush Intercontinental Airport to Amsterdam diverted to O’Hare International Airport and landed safely following a passenger disturbance. Law enforcement met the aircraft at the gate and escorted the passenger off the plane. The aircraft then continued to Amsterdam.”
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