Airplane passengers are once again in the spotlight thanks to a delay which led to an attack on airline staff in Guangzhou.

Few details are known so far about the incident which took place on February 20, towards the tail end of the Chinese New Year.

Two passengers were angry over the late arrival of a China Southern Airlines flight from Melbourne, Australia, and took out their anger on a gate agent, who they beat to the ground.

As you can see in the picture below, he is cradled, covering his face. A few barriers can be seen knocked down.

All in all, it looks like a mess.
This incident is pretty similar to the actions of Yan Linkun, the now suspended CPPCC committee member and deputy chairman of state-owned Yunnan Mining Corporation, who was caught on CCTV smashing the place up after he missed his flight.

We’ve now got a video with sound to hear his unfortunate episode.

He went berserk at one of the gates at Kunming Airport for missing his flight, not once, but twice. All the damage, thankfully, was to inanimate objects rather than airline staff who bravely watched on.

Here’s a series of notable passenger incidents in February as Adam Minter points out:

– Feb. 6, Kunming Changshui International Airport: In a video that has gone viral internationally, Yan Linkun, a mining executive and county-level Communist Party official, smashes two boarding gate computers and attempts to send the frame of a sign through the glass door standing between him and the second flight that he and his family have missed.

– Feb. 14, Beijing Capital International Airport: Six business-class passengers traveling together refuse to fasten their seat belts or turn off their phones prior to takeoff, then become abusive toward the flight attendants and captain, forcing a return to the gate and a substantial flight delay.

– Feb. 22, Air France Flight 132, somewhere between Paris and Wuhan: Two men, reportedly drunk, swipe between seven and 16 bottles of wine (accounts vary) from a drink cart. When confronted, they become so belligerent that the pilot has to intervene. They still manage to threaten the life of a passenger whom they judge as particularly nosy.

This is just the tip of the iceberg but I think we all need a bit of travelling etiquette.