Couple mad about reclined seat are banned from flying Cathay Pacific

A couple, who argued with a passenger who reclined her seat, won’t be flying with Cathay Pacific ever again.

The Hong Kong-based airline banned the pair after video footage emerged of an onboard disagreement that occurred on a long-haul flight on Sept. 17, according to a statement the company posted on the social media platform Xiaohongshu.

The video, which was posted on the same platform, which is often described as China’s Instagram, showed the couple taunting, using vulgar hand gestures, and jostling the chair of a female passenger who reclined her seat on a 14-hour flight from Hong Kong to London.

Cathay Pacific has not responded to CNBC’s request for comment, but said in the statement that it “sincerely” apologized for the incident.

“We maintain a zero-tolerance policy towards any behavior that violates safety regulations or disrespects other passengers’ rights,” the company wrote, according to CNBC’s translation of the Chinese.

The woman, who narrates parts of the video that was posted on the same platform, said the couple harassed her after she declined to return her seat to the upright position.

In the video, she said she asked the flight attendants for help.

“I was shocked because it was not meal time, but the flight attendant … she asked me to compromise, so I rejected the suggestion,” the woman said in the video, according to CNBC’s translation of the Chinese.

The harassment intensified after the staff failed to intervene, she alleged. The video captures her chair moving from being kicked and pushed from behind. Eventually, she was moved to another seat, the video showed.

However, Cathay Pacific said in its statement that onboard staff had issued two “serious” verbal warnings to the two disruptive passengers.

The unruly behavior rose to the point where nearby passengers intervened. Passengers can be heard in the video saying: “Show some decency!” “Don’t bully that little girl!” “You are bringing shame to our Hong Kongers.”

One of the passengers who had been banned repeatedly referred to the reclining passenger as a “mainlander.”

To many mainland citizens, this incident brought back memories of another scandal that caused a stir on Chinese social media last year. The carrier fired three flight attendants following a viral clip where the crew were heard mocking a non-English-speaking passenger who mistakenly used the word “carpet” when requesting a blanket.

Social media platforms, such as Xiaohongshu, are rife with mainland Chinese alleging ill treatment while in Hong Kong. Some of them say they feel discriminated against in the city — where locals speak Cantonese, not Mandarin, the official Chinese dialect.

The divide between mainland…