Flight Passenger Blocks Crew From Closing Plane Door While Daughter Was Shopping

A Spring Airlines passenger tried to prevent the cabin crew from closing the main door of the aircraft and concluding the boarding process because her daughter was on a shopping spree and was running late.

The incident took place on Flight 9c8892, which was scheduled to take off Wednesday at 3:30 a.m. local time (4:30 p.m. EDT, Tuesday) from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport to Shanghai, China. In order to halt the plane, the woman sat on the jet bridge and refused to budge until her daughter arrived. As a result, 160 passengers onboard the flight got delayed.

The footage of the incident, recorded by another passenger, was uploaded on Chinese short-video platform Douyin, where it went viral. The clip showed an airline worker confronting the woman and trying to explain to her why her actions were wrong.

A spokesperson for the Chinese airline company confirmed the incident to Daily Mail, saying the woman appeared emotional while trying to block the plane’s crew from closing the aircraft door. The female passenger told the crew that her daughter had called the airport police and demanded the departure of the flight be held till she arrived onboard. The daughter reportedly told the authorities it was essential that she boarded the flight as she had left her hand luggage with her mother and checked in two bags at the airport.

Although Spring Airlines did not specify the relation between the two passengers or their genders, it mentioned that the flight was delayed by more than half an hour before the woman and her daughter agreed to give up the journey. After a four-hour-long flight, the aircraft landed at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 9:14 a.m. local time, over an hour behind schedule.

Chinese web users urged the tourism authorities to blacklist the mother and her daughter, while the Airlines condemned the passengers' “uncivilized” behavior.

In 2015, China's National Tourism Administration introduced a program designed to curb incidents involving disruptive behavior by mainland tourists while traveling or on holiday. NTA chairman Li Jinzao said the country will monitor and rank incidents of misbehavior and the gathered information would be passed on to travel companies to allow them to decide “whether to sell the person that ticket, or whether to let them take [a specific] flight.”