Handcuffed and Detained: Your Next Trip Report Could Land You In Trouble

A man taking photos of his flight’s aircraft and cabin crew was taken off the aircraft in handcuffs, questioned, re-screened, and then let back on before the flight continued.

Some passengers claimed air stewardesses were crying and one asked who would look after her children if anything happened.

Nick Taylor, 40, from Blackburn, Lancashire, left the plane with his wife and son and paid £1,000 for new flights home.

He said: ‘I had to make a decision, do I risk my family for the sake of £1,000?
‘The air hostesses were crying and there was a scuffle at the front of the plane. There was a very tense atmosphere.

So what exactly made everyone so concerned?

The ‘agitated’ passenger launched into a series of bizarre antics when his request to see the cockpit was rejected.

The man, described as in his early 30s and of African descent, took pictures of the plane and cabin crew before taking a selfie and snapping his phone’s SIM card and throwing it down a toilet.

The Jet2.com flight from Malaga to Manchester was delayed about two hours.

The snapping of the SIM card and flushing it down the toilet part is sort of strange, but I would have just assumed he was frustrated and not especially discrete about his efforts to write a trip report.

In fact, the description of the passenger notwithstanding, I figured that Matthew Klint hadn’t learned his lesson.

(HT: Alan H.)


About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. What does this mean?

    > “assumed he was frustrated and not especially
    > discrete about his efforts to write a trip report”

    I can’t think of any legitimate reason to snap and flush a SIM card.

  2. I have removed SIM cards from my phone, broken them and then tossed them in the garbage in bathrooms or elsewhere.

    What else is to be done with a pre-paid SIM card bought merely for local use while on vacation or visiting a foreign country? Keep another useless SIM card souvenir? Let someone else pick up the SIM/number and possibly misuse it even as the SIM/number use traces back to you and/or your phone’s IMEI?

    Nothing bizarre about tossing out a no-longer-useful-for-me SIM card by first disabling it and then disposing of it. Rather that’s a good habit in much of the world.

  3. Malaga? The place where a bar can promise to give a female bar patron a “free trip” for performing oral sex on multiple male bar patrons, and then some drunk women (often on vacation from the UK/IRL) will be more than happy to play along only until they find out that the “free trip” is actually a reference to a free drink? No, that is Magaluf, even with much the same kind of crowd. “Free trips” in exchange for trip reports or miles (sort of the same thing) sounds more refined.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/10945990/Magaluf-girl-How-far-would-you-go-for-a-free-drink.html

    Gary, I’m surprised you didn’t cover that “free trip” contest. Does sex sell more than racist profiling stories?

  4. @mike

    Exactly, even if the toilet door is open, I don’t think anyone can see what he did inside as they don’t have seats right next to the toilet anymore.

  5. I can’t wait when all smartphones will be required to either 1) have a camera without Internet access, or 2) cannot have a camera, but can have Internet access, and 3) all previous versions that have had both will be banned once and for all.

    In my opinion, ALL smart phones are munitions. At anytime, a snapshot can be taken and posted on-line to harm people, especially the intended. That is a munition without a safety on.

    Thanks.

  6. @ED Thats stupid and ur stupid for writing it. If i have a camera with no internet access i can still upload it using a computer as long as camers has memory chip or port that connects to computer. So I could snap a shot on my camera and post it online and ruin the persons life right? So should we just ban all cameras?

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