An insignificant incident on a domestic flight in China turned into an argument after one of the passengers got furious because of the food cart hitting his elbow while he was sleeping.
The incident took place on Monday, September 28, during a domestic flight from Hefei to Dalian. The problem started when the cabin crew began serving food. When a flight attendant pushed the food cart through the cabin, it hit the elbow of one of the passengers who was asleep.
After realizing what had happened, the flight attendant quickly apologized. However, the passenger reportedly did not accept her apology and got angrier and angrier.
As reported, the man insulted the flight attendant and demanded her to go with him to the hospital after landing.
The inexperienced flight attendant seemed nervous in light of the passengers behavior. At one point the attendant reportedly apologized profusely, while also kneeling down a couple of times.
Another passenger, by the name of Zhang, was a witness to the incident. It had been taking place as the plane arrived at the destination, and security services were boarding the plane. Medical personnel got on board.
Medical professionals did not find any external injuries, thus it was not necessary to pursue any sort of medical help. The passenger then refused the assistance of the airline staff.
The news about the incident went viral and became a hot discussion topic online, including on Weibo and Twitter, where users criticized the passengers reaction. According to one experienced flight attendant, in case of any incidents involving passengers, including being hit by an airline cart, the flight attendants follow steps as per the standard procedure.
In case a passenger decides to file a complaint the performance of the flight attendants who dealt with that passenger could suffer.
As the senior flight attendant said that she believed that the crew member having inadequate experience went down on her knees out of panic.
On the same day, the airline released a press-release stating that the staff member suffered from severe emotional trauma after the incident and was given some counseling assistance and came back to work.
