I already wrote about my incredible Oman Air Boeing 787 business class flight from Milan to Muscat. What I haven’t yet shared is what was perhaps the most interesting part of the experience, which is the reason the flight was delayed by around 50 minutes. Nope, it wasn’t because of a late inbound aircraft, or a maintenance issue, or an air traffic control delay. Instead…
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Commotion in Oman Air business class
My flight was operated by an Oman Air Boeing 787-9, featuring five rows of business class. There are four rows in the forward cabin, and then there’s a mini-cabin behind the second set of doors, where I was seated.
About 15 minutes before our scheduled departure time, after everyone had boarded, I suddenly heard a man at the front of the plane screaming very loudly. I saw several crew members run toward the forward cabin, and then maybe 30 seconds later, someone yelled “polizia.” Then maybe another 30 seconds later, I heard clapping (presumably from other passengers) in the forward cabin.
At this point the lovely cabin manager pulled the curtain right in front of my seat, so that we wouldn’t be “disturbed” by the situation, I guess. She looked at me, and said “sorry sir, we are actually having some commotions.” You don’t say!
The entire situation was so loud and absurd that I honestly wondered if I was misinterpreting what was going on, but nope…
The police got involved to offload passengers
Within about five minutes of the incident, two police officers showed up on the aircraft. Stood in the galley by the second set of doors were the two police officers and the two business class passengers who I guess were involved in this incident.
The police had the passports of the two travelers, and there was a lot of radioing going on, with police writing down lots of information. I was surprised by how drawn out this was. I’m not sure if both of the men were sharing their version of events, or what. The police and the two passengers continued to stand there for a total of around 30 minutes, up until 20 minutes past our departure time.
At that point the two passengers were offloaded. Passengers in economy seemed irritated about the lack of updates with the delay, which I can’t blame them for. At the same time, the crew was in a tough position, because what exactly can they announce?
20 minutes past our scheduled departure time, the captain finally made an announcement, apologizing for the delay, explaining it was “due to offloading two passengers.” We were then delayed roughly 30 additional minutes, as the luggage of the passengers had to be taken off the aircraft.
I have to give the crew credit for not making a big deal of this and trying to downplay the situation, pretending like nothing was going on. I tried to get some information out of them in a roundabout way, but they were tight-lipped. Impressive!
Bottom line
I’ve witnessed a lot of stuff in my many years of frequent flying, though I’ve never had a substantial delay due to two passengers getting into a fight… or something. I’m still not sure what exactly happened, other than very loud yelling, followed by “polizia,” followed by clapping, followed by two police officers showing up, followed by two passengers and their bags being offloaded.
Usually I like to sit in the mini-cabin because it’s a bit quieter, though this is a case where I would’ve been curious to see the action. The guys should probably be grateful that they decided to misbehave in Italy rather than in the Middle East, because I imagine there could be a lot more consequences there…
First, I do not think this topic was worthy of an entire article. Secondly, I think the staff should have told the truth. Perhaps not in detail about the reason for the dispute but just that there was a dispute and it was handled by the authorities.
I must say that I once nearly got into a fight, in business class. I moved a passenger's bag which was in the overhead compartment SLIGHTLY to the left to make way for my carry-on. Said passenger saw it and SCREAMED at the top of his lungs not to touch his items, stood up and shoved my carry-on away, and threatened to take further action. Took all my will power not to retaliate!
The guy who violently lost his temper had just found out there was an aircraft swap on his upcoming flight from Muscan to Frankfurt, and was understandably upset about the fact he wouldn't receive the first class seat he paid for and wouldn't be able to enjoy the A330-300 couch.
Lame. Should’ve offered it as PPV on the inflight entertainment - together with live betting on who is winning the fight.
Earlier this year I was on an OmanAir flight and a loud verbal dispute broke out in Arabic between one or two FAs and two or three passengers while we were taxiing. Apparently the FAs were not happy that a couple of passengers had decided to choose to move themselves into largely empty exit row seats in economy class, but the FAs seemed to only realize this while the plane was already moving and away...
Earlier this year I was on an OmanAir flight and a loud verbal dispute broke out in Arabic between one or two FAs and two or three passengers while we were taxiing. Apparently the FAs were not happy that a couple of passengers had decided to choose to move themselves into largely empty exit row seats in economy class, but the FAs seemed to only realize this while the plane was already moving and away from the departure gate. It seemed to me to be mainly an issue of revenue protection. The one hold-out passenger refused to move and said it’s a safety violation to tell passengers to unbuckle themselves and move while the seatbelt sign is on. That got the FAs off his back until after take-off, and then he too moved to a regular economy class seat.
OmanAir has relatively comfortable seats in economy class, at least better than what passes for economy class comfort on the typical US and European airlines that get most of my business.
I flew MAN-BSL on Easyjet last year. We were on the runway and about to take off but just sat there for about 10 minutes, then the plane taxied down the runway a bit and started heading back to the terminal. The crew made no announcements until we were back at the terminal and the door was opened.
The crew announced that there had been an incident with a passenger and the passenger was...
I flew MAN-BSL on Easyjet last year. We were on the runway and about to take off but just sat there for about 10 minutes, then the plane taxied down the runway a bit and started heading back to the terminal. The crew made no announcements until we were back at the terminal and the door was opened.
The crew announced that there had been an incident with a passenger and the passenger was being offloaded. The passenger walked off and a few minutes later a member of the crew also walked off. We sat for about another 30 minutes until the crew announced that the crew member that walked off would not be coming back since the passenger hurt her feelings. After about an hour they found a spare crew member. We were delayed 2 hours because someone’s feelings were hurt.
The passenger was offloaded for being disruptive and possibly assaulted the crew, who also disembarked to discuss it with the police. Airlines don’t do this for fun.
Two men have a violent fight in business class before departure. It's obvious why the FA wouldn't attempt to insult your intelligence by stating the obvious reason for the fracas.
Ben, what FF program did you credit your Oman flight to? Or was it a rewards flight? I think Oman only partners with Ethiad (and QR only on MUS-DOH).
I have a trip to Oman next week so a quick answer is appreciated!
Ben’s universal point worth is 11.2 million ; enough for a hundred first class rewards.
Is that actually the true figure? What's your source? (Just curious BTW, because I'm sure it's somewhere around there).
My Oman Air flights get credited to EY’s program. Using WY’s program wouldn’t work as well for me.
Fair enough. Mine is only a short flight -- MUS-DXB -- so I might use WY and hope they join Avios in the future. Otherwise its stranded points and that would be the same with EY.
Does Oman Air codeshare with Spirit?
Arguments in Arabic and Hebrew May sound Spirit-ed. Actually, that seems to hold for arguments in many languages.
Those throne seats are even more sought after than we thought!
Lol. At this very moment southwest is scrapping their first come first serve business class options. But I would pay to see those boarding processes.