The incident occurred late last month on a Manchester-bound flight from Doha and saw a business class traveler restrained with cable ties.
A Qatar Airways passenger was “restrained with cable ties” after a violent, drunken outburst onboard a flight from Doha to Manchester late last month, the Daily Mail reports. The business class passenger, an unnamed 45-year-old man, was seen to be shouting, throwing mints and banging his head against a window of the Boeing 787.
Traveler Andrew Norman-Smith gave the outlet an eyewitness account of the incident, saying, “Qatar said they served him two whiskeys and that was two too many because he seemed to have been drinking before boarding. Later I was awoken when the passenger was banging on the window and trying to grab the passenger next to him. He was all over the place, getting up, sitting down.”
“He was kicking the seats in front and poking me. It was really unsettling when you’re 40,000ft in the air. I felt like I couldn’t react in a way I would have done on the ground because he was volatile. His whole demeanor was really unsettling and he was a big guy, at least 6ft,” he added.
When Norman-Smith raised his concerns to cabin crew over the unnamed passengers’ behavior, the man threw mints at him. The drunken traveler was then restrained.
“He had to be restrained using cable ties. I think airlines should stop serving alcohol on flights, this is happening too much […] It was a terrible flight, it’s put me off flying again and I certainly don’t want to fly with Qatar again – although the staff did handle it well,” he said.
Police authorities in Manchester confirmed that they had been involved in the incident and had arrested a man on suspicion of being drunk. The passenger has reportedly been released from custody, but the outlet reports that he has been ‘blacklisted’ by the carrier.
Qatar declined to describe the incident in full, saying, “In respect of passenger privacy we do not comment on individual cases.”
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