SIA flight delayed by almost 2 hrs due to abusive passenger who was later taken off plane

SINGAPORE: A passenger on a Singapore Airlines flight to Shanghai on Thursday (Feb 6) was removed from the plane, along with their companion, after becoming "verbally and physically" abusive, according to the airline.

Their antics, however, caused the plane’s departure to be delayed by nearly two hours, media reports said, adding that the passenger was turned over to the authorities at Changi Airport.

Although details about the disruptive passenger, such as name, gender, and nationality, remain undisclosed, a TikTok video posted by another passenger indicates that a woman was responsible for the delay.

The Feb 6 video from @chloeluna7305 has since gone viral with almost 300,000 views. The TikTok user wrote that a quarrel broke out on SQ 826 and led to a “1.5 hours flight delay.”

In the video, a woman can be heard speaking loudly and quickly in an agitated manner. Other voices, both male and female, can also be heard, presumably attempting to get the woman to calm down. However, she went on with her tirade.

https://www.tiktok.com/@chloeluna7305/video/7468142125067144449?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7468556630465283606

Some passengers on the flight seemed to find the situation humorous and could be heard laughing.

In the caption to her post, the TikTok user added that the woman who had made the fuss “in the end…got off the plane” and officials needed to find and remove her luggage as well before the plane could take off.

The flight was scheduled to leave at 1:15 am, but because of the passenger’s antics, it did not leave until 3:01 am, a delay of one hour and 46 minutes in all.

The woman allegedly got upset when she tried to use the restroom while the plane was already taxiing and the flight attendants asked her to take her seat.

“She berated the cabin crew insisting it’s her right” to use the toilet,” one commenter explained.

The issue appears to have been compounded by language problems, as the woman insisted that she be spoken to in Chinese and not in English.

Some commenters praised the flight attendants for still speaking so calmly despite the woman’s ill behaviour.

“SIA believes that all our employees have a right to a safe and respectful workplace environment. We do not tolerate any form of unruly or abusive behaviour, whether on the ground or in the air,” a spokesperson for the national carrier was quoted in The Straits Times as saying. /TISG

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