Woman removed from Air New Zealand flight after ‘refusing’ to watch safety video
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A woman was escorted from an Air New Zealand flight by police after she allegedly refused to watch the in-flight safety video.
The service from Wellington to Auckland had to return to the gate prior to take-off, where the woman was removed from the aircraft for failing to comply with crew instructions.
“The passenger will receive an infringement notice under Civil Aviation Authority rules relating to the use of a cellphone,” a police spokesperson told Newshub, confirming that they responded to a request to meet flight NZ424 this morning.
The unnamed woman, who was traveling with another unnamed man, had been sitting in an exit row on their flight from Wellington to Auckland on Tuesday morning local time.
The pair refused to read the plane’s flight safety instruction card or watch the safety video that started playing on monitors, Stuff cited a fellow passenger as saying.
As the safety video was playing, the couple started looking at their phones, Stuff reported. The woman also started looking at her book as a flight attendant held up the flight safety card for her to view.
Other passengers asked the man and the woman to pay attention to the instructions so they could get on with the flight, but the couple refused.
Their refusal to cooperate delayed the flight by a total of 25 minutes.
The pilot returned the plane to the gate as a result of the woman’s refusal to cooperate with flight staff. She was eventually thrown off the flight. It’s not clear whether the man was also removed.
