Advertiser Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links below. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers.
A 53-year-old man was removed from a flight at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD) in December after it was reported that he exposed himself at his seat and urinated into a cup in front of a horrified mother and daughter who were seated nearby. The man has now been fined for his actions on board the aircraft.
According to Stuff, the passenger urinated into a cup after the plane had landed and was waiting for a gate. He began peeing at his seat. The mother and daughter alerted a flight attendant. The mother, identified as Holly, told the media outlet:
We heard him do it [urinate]. There was no mistaking what the sound was and I just looked straight at my daughter and my daughter looked straight at me. It was very obvious what was happening. So yeah he pulled his naked penis out next to us at least three times. That just makes my skin crawl. And because I guess we had moved he then got up after us and was carrying another full cup. I guess his intention was to pour it out in the toilet. Then as he was walking, he was obviously quite drunk by this point, he spilled a good amount of his urine onto the flight attendant at the end of the plane as well, because he tripped. So then he went into the toilet, we had told them obviously what had happened, or what we thought had happened, and then it was kind of solidified by the fact that he had this cup of urine and had spilt half of that on her.”
It seems like his intention was to dispose of his urine in the lavatory, but he tripped and spilled some urine on a flight attendant. So gross!
The Australian Federal Police charged the man with acting in an offensive or disorderly manner affecting safety, under section 91.525(4) of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998. He was also fined $600 AU (around $395 USD). Holly and her daughter received a generic apology and eventually a gift basket. She says that since the incident her daughter does not feel comfortable flying alone.
Air Zealand’s Chief Operational Integrity and Safety Officer, David Morgan, said:
If behaviour like this were to happen on our aircraft, our normal process would be to call the local law enforcement agencies and do our own internal investigations. Unless there were exceptional circumstances, this sort of abhorrent behaviour would lead to the passenger being banned. We will not stand for abhorrent behaviour that impacts other customers and our staff. It’s frustrating for us to have to deal with behaviour like this from a small number of people when most of our passengers are fantastic. We apologise to any customers who have experienced poor behaviour from a fellow passenger and would like to reassure our customers we take issues like this seriously.”
Air New Zealand bans five to 10 customers each month for a range of unacceptable behaviors, repeatedly failing to follow crew instructions, and being intoxicated.
Anthony’s Take: This man should have rushed to the lavatory if it was that much of an emergency. It seems like alcohol and bad judgment came into play here.
(Image Credits: Air New Zealand and Will Waters.)
(H/T: Paddle Your Own Kanoo.)
User Generated Content Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
