A husband and wife, identified by their initials RS and NS, are making headlines all around Indonesia today after being ejected from a Citilink flight for bringing an excessive amount of baggage into the cabin and then their subsequent misbehavior when told they had violated flight regulations.
According to the official statement from Citilink, RS and NS were boarding a flight from Medan’s Kualanamu Airport to Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport yesterday while having on them more carry-ons than is permitted.
“He (RS) sat at the very front – the first row – with his spouse. At the time he was carrying so many items – there were eight carry-ons,” said Citilink VP Benny S Butarbutar, as quoted by Detik yesterday.
Butarbutar said there are limits on the number of articles, weight, and dimensions of passengers’ carry-ons on Citilink flights, all of which the couple exceeded.
A flight attendant asked the couple to check in some of their carry-on items. Instead of complying, the couple got upset and one of them shoved her.
Because of the commotion, the flight’s captain decided to eject the couple, who then received refunds for their tickets on the ground.
There are no reports of criminal assault charges being filed against the couple for shoving the flight attendant.
Meanwhile, the incident caused the flight’s take off to be delayed for one hour.
Butarbutar praised the conduct of the Citilink air crew in handling the situation.
“(That many carry-ons) shouldn’t have been allowed to pass through. The last line for checking (carry-ons) is on board the flight. The air crew did as they were supposed to. The flight captain also did as he was supposed to,” he said.
However, Butarbutar did not comment on whether or not the ground crew should have prevented or at least notified the couple about not being able to bring eight carry-ons with them on board.
