Aviation News

The Daily Star reports that the men on the Jet2 flight, named as Jonathan JW and Nicolas S, were arrested by armed officers from the Civil Guard after the captain called ahead to the airport in Ibiza and asked police to board the plane.

The two young men appeared before magistrates and could now face up to a year in prison if they are found guilty of indecent exposure.

A civil guard spokesman said: "They dropped their trousers and exposed their private parts to the crew and passengers."

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Rampant threats cripple Chinese aviation industry in recent months

Within two days, two Chinese airlines were forced to abandon their flights after receiving messages threatening the safety of passengers on board.

Last Wednesday, after taking off at 1.30pm at the Beijing Capital International Airport, the New York-bound flight CA981 operated by Air China returned to the airport at 8.25pm.

Air China said on its microblog that it received information of the threat during the flight and decided to recall the aircraft, which carried more than 300 passengers, back to the Chinese capital.

However, the airline did not give details of the threat.

A Beijing airport police spokesman told China Daily that the information came from the United States but it could have been forged and released from China.

The airport authorities said all passengers on board the plane, their hand-carry and checked-in luggage and the cargo were re-screened to ensure the passengers’ safety.

The police also searched the plane’s passenger and cargo cabins but found nothing suspicious as claimed in the message.

“Flight safety is too important. We would not take any risk,” Air China North America deputy general manager Yang Rui was quoted by the daily as saying.

He said the airline later changed the plane and cabin crew and the flight was re-scheduled and departed at about 12.30am last Thursday.

“Some passengers opted to cancel their trip, but most of them boarded the flight and continued with their trip to New York,” he said.

A passenger on board the plane who works for the Chinese Science and Technology Ministry wrote on his microblog that the incident was dealt with smoothly by the airline.

“The airport and police did a great job. All passengers cooperated and hardly caused any trouble. We are supportive of an investigation,” said Wang Qiang.

He said he thought something went wrong when the on-board electronic flight map showed that the aircraft was heading back to Beijing.

However, he was informed by the flight attendants that it was a map display error. Air China later explained that the crew members did not reveal the real reason to avoid unnecessary panic.

Air China also denied speculations on social media websites that the flight flew back because a corrupt official who was trying to flee the country was among the passengers on the plane.

On Thursday, a similar incident happened to Shenzhen Airlines. The company based in southern China diverted its flight ZH9706 to the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Hubei province’s Wuhan city.

The plane which carried 80 passengers and crew members landed at the airport at 11.22pm. The flight was supposed to fly from Xiangyang city in Hubei to Shenzhen.

The Wuhan airport authority said on its website that the passengers stayed overnight at Wuhan and took another flight B6196, which was specially sent to the airport, to get to Shenzhen the next morning.

The authority said airport police and staff screened the passengers and carried out thorough checks twice but found no explosives or haphazard products.

Local media reported that the airport police was investigating into a threatening call made by a person soon after the affected flight took off.

On Saturday, China News Services quoted sources from the Xiangyang public security bureau as saying that the police arrested a 29-year-old man in Dongguan in Guangdong province.

Initial investigations showed that the man was suspected for calling Shenzhen Airlines and threatening to bomb the plane.

Rampant bomb threats have crippled the Chinese civil aviation industry in recent months.

Early last month, an Air China flight from Beijing to Nanchang returned to the capital after a passenger claimed that there was a bomb on board the plane. But, it turned out to be untrue.

In April, a 19-year-old teenager contacted the Shanghai Pudong International Airport claiming that flight CA406 from Shanghai to Chengdu was installed with a bomb.

He ordered the airport authority to remit one million yuan (RM480,000) into his bank account or he would blow the plane apart. He was later detained for causing false alarm and spreading rumours.

QUESTION: Was it a good idea for the flight attendants to cover up the reason for the return to Beijing?

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A woman flying from Las Vegas on Southwest this spring says she was confronted by an airline employee for showing too much cleavage. In another recent case, an American Airlines pilot lectured a passenger because her T-shirt bore a four-letter expletive. She was allowed to keep flying after draping a shawl over the shirt.

Both women told their stories to sympathetic bloggers, and the debate over what you can wear in the air went viral.

It’s not always clear what’s appropriate. Airlines don’t publish dress codes. There are no rules that spell out the highest hemline or the lowest neckline allowed. That can leave passengers guessing how far to push fashion boundaries. Every once in a while the airline says: Not that far.

“It’s like any service business. If you run a family restaurant and somebody is swearing, you kindly ask them to leave,” says Kenneth Quinn, an aviation lawyer and former chief counsel at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

The American Airlines passenger, who declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press, works for an abortion provider. Supporters suggested that she was singled out because her T-shirt had a pro-choice slogan.

A spokesman for American says the passenger was asked to cover up “because of the F-word on the T-shirt.” He says that the airline isn’t taking sides in the abortion debate.

Last week, Arijit Guha, a graduate student at Arizona State University, was barred from a Delta flight in Buffalo, N.Y., because of a T-shirt that mocked federal security agents and included the words, “Terrists gonna kill us all.” He says the misspelled shirt was satirical and he wore it to protest what he considers racial profiling.

“I thought it was a very American idea to speak up and dissent when you think people’s rights are being violated,” Guha says. The pilot thought it scared other passengers.

American and Delta are within their rights to make the passengers change shirts even if messages are political, says Joe Larsen, a First Amendment lawyer from Houston who has defended many media companies.

The First Amendment prohibits government from limiting a person’s free-speech rights, but it doesn’t apply to rules set by private companies, Larsen says. He notes that government security screeners didn’t challenge Guha; private Delta employees did.

In short, since airlines and their planes are private property and not a public space like the courthouse steps, crews can tell you what to wear.

In the early years of jet travel, passengers dressed up and confrontations over clothing were unimaginable. They’re still rare — there aren’t any precise numbers — but when showdowns happen, they gain more attention as aggrieved passengers complain on the Internet about airline clothing cops. It’s unwelcome publicity for airlines, which already rate near the bottom of all industries when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Critics complain that airlines enforce clothing standards inconsistently. The lack of clear rules leaves decisions to the judgment of individual airline employees.

Last year, a passenger was pulled off a US Airways jet and arrested at San Francisco International Airport after airline employees say he refused to pull up his low-hanging pants. The local prosecutor declined to file charges against Deshon Marman, a University of New Mexico football player.

Marman’s lawyer complained that the same airline repeatedly allowed a middle-age man to travel wearing women’s underwear and not much else.

“You can’t let someone repugnant like that (the cross-dresser) on the plane and single out this kid because he’s black, wearing dreadlocks, and had two or three inches of his underwear showing,” says the lawyer, Joseph D. O’Sullivan. “They can’t arrest him for what someone perceives to be inappropriate attire.”

US Airways spokesman John McDonald says no passengers complained about the cross-dresser until his photo in women’s underwear circulated on the Internet after the Marman incident. He says the airline doesn’t have a dress code but that employees may talk to a passenger if other people might be offended by the way he’s dressed.

“It’s not an issue of a dress code, it’s one of disruption,” like watching pornography within sight of other passengers, McDonald says.

An informal survey of passengers at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport found much support for limits on clothing.

“Curse words on shirts always bother me,” says John Gordon, who just graduated from film school in Florida and was dressed in khaki shorts and a T-shirt. “It’s an unspoken rule that when you go out in public, you should be respectful.”

But Leigh Ann Epperson, a corporate lawyer who had just flown in from Tokyo, says she wouldn’t be bothered if another passenger’s shirt bore the F-word.

“If people are paying the price for their tickets, they should be able to wear what they want,” says Epperson, who wore a black sweater over a low-cut blouse, black slacks and wedge-type heels.

Airlines say they refund the passenger’s fare if they deny boarding for inappropriate attire.

Clashes over clothing and other flash points seem to be increasing, says Alexander Anolik, a travel-law attorney in Tiburon, Calif. He blames an unhappy mix of airline employees who feel underpaid and unloved, and passengers who are stressed out and angry over extra fees on everything from checking a bag to scoring an aisle seat.

Anolik says that passengers should obey requests from airline employees. If passengers don’t, they could be accused of interfering with a flight crew — a federal crime. He says passengers should wait until they’re off the plane to file complaints with the airline, the U.S. Department of Transportation or in small-claims court.

“They have this omnipotent power,” Anolik says of flight crews. “You shouldn’t argue your case while you’re on the airplane. You’re in a no-win scenario — you will be arrested.”

QUESTION: Should airlines have a right to prevent some passengers from boarding based on their clothing?

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Bikini-clad models put on a show for passengers on a VietJetAir flight on Friday

Vietnamese flight officials have fined an airline after it hosted some unorthodox mid-flight entertainment on Friday.

VietJetAir was fined 20 million VND (about $953 CAD) after five bikini-clad models walked out to the aisle during a flight and performed a (loosely) Hawaiian themed dance.

The airline posted a video of the performance to YouTube, which showed passengers holding up their mobile phones and cameras, taking pictures and recording movie clips of the models who were contestants in a local beauty pageant, according to Troi Tre news.

A spokesperson for Vietnam’s aviation authorities said that the company was fined because it had violated regulations by organizing an unapproved show on their plane.

VietJetAir replied by saying that the plane had reached a safe altitude before starting the show, and that phones used to record the models were used in movie mode only to avoid risking flight safety (exactly how they ensured passengers did so was unclear).

The show celebrated the opening of the airline’s route from Ho Chi Ming City to Nha Trang, a popular holiday location. A company statement said VietJetAir wanted to create a “holiday atmosphere” for its passengers,according to BBC News.

“It was the first flight to a beach town, so we came up with the idea of getting a number of girls in bikinis to dance and make passengers happy to improve our customer service,” a VietJetAir spokesman told the Daily Mail.

The bikini show certainly ranks high on a list of unusual in-flight entertainment, but it’s not the only time a sky-high performance caught the attention of otherwise sleepy or silent passengers.

In May, Toronto-based band the Lemon Bucket Orchestra broke out the brass and accordions while on a delayed flight from Frankfurt to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

QUESTION: What possible injuries could have resulted from this show?

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