'Psychology student Dominic Kojima Matthews harassed flight attendants, fellow passengers on 17-hour plane trip.' Says The Australian.
It seems that Dominic has pleaded guilty to two offences and is waiting to be charged. His defence cite fear of flying and anxiety as part of the reason for his behaviour. The snippet that stood out to me from the article was this, “Flight crew form an important role in ensuring the safety of all passengers and this type of behaviour hinders their ability to perform their duties,” the prosecutor told the court.
“Of particular concern are the threatening remarks that were made towards one passenger.”
Matthews, of Cumberland Park, pleaded guilty to offensive and disorderly behaviour on an aircraft and failing to comply with instructions on an aircraft.
Full article here
Our thoughts on this...
An area of concern that nervous flyers have is, 'What powers do the cabin crew have if you have someone behaving badly on a flight?' Hopefully, this shows you that the law is on the side of commercial aviation when it comes to incidents like this? The crew have lots of training around de-escalation techniques and also can, if worst comes to worst, handcuff you! Cabin crew would prefer to use their superb communication skills to talk people down from bad behaviour. Also, crew keep an eye on people who are drinking too much onboard an aircraft. The flight deck have no problems phoning ahead to have the aircraft met by police authorities when we land.
Okay, that is the official stuff. Not excusing the bad behaviour...
There is possibly a more compassionate human side to this as well. This is not the first time someone has been in the news stating their behaviour was linked to a fear of flying. We know, from year's of experience, that in some cases this is actually true. Many people who are scared of flying, get drunk at the airport - to be blunt! You are not allowed to board an aircraft drunk and also, this is not a good long term solution.
If you have a fear of flying, this is not the way to deal with it. Please get some professional help - you will be amazed how differently you will feel towards flying when you do so.
Take care,
Team @ Lovefly®
- We have lots of blogs you can read
- We are recording podcasts regularly on helpful topics for the nervous flyer. Search 'Lovefly' on Podbean, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts
- We have and will run webinars around fear of flying areas people want to know about and more information is on our website www.lovefly.co.uk
- Audiobook written and narrated by Paul Tizzard available on Audible and most places you get your audio books from 'Helping You to Overcome Fear of Flying' (released this year)
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