Man Tries to Catch Flight by Claiming There’s a Bomb on Board

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Recently, I’ve written on a few instances of outlandish, drunk behavior in the air.  It’s easy to know what the passenger is thinking because, well, they aren’t.

They’re drunk.

But there are times when I can’t even begin to imagine what could have possibly led someone to believe something was a good idea in air travel.

For example:

When a couple arrived to their gate too late and knocked staff out of the way, rushed the gate, and ran under the plane to prevent the airplane from departing.

There was the man who ran after his flight, hoping it would stop for him.  (Believe it or not, it did stop.)

But this guy takes the cake.

After realizing he wasn’t going to catch his flight departing the Geneva-aiport, a man told an agent that there was a bomb on board–assumedly hoping the delay would give him some more breathing room to catch the flight.

From the Hindustan Times:

The man, who lives in the Swiss town of Montreux, was arrested at the airport and sentenced to six months prison, Le Matin reported.

Geneva police chief Francois Waridel told Le Matin that the amount billed (Le Chic Geek note: 50,000 francs, or  $51,000 US) would be enough to pay the 101 police officers and six public security agents who were called in to respond to the alert, pointing out that the 116 passengers had been disembarked to allow a thorough search of the plane.

I won’t claim to know other country’s rules around making bomb threats, though in terms of criminal punishment, this seems more lenient than the US would probably be.  He didn’t actually make a bomb threat, but I have a feeling the US would have taken it that way.

In term of the fine–I like this approach to compensation in general.  The man literally had to pay for the mess he made.

I think the same approach should be used when someone forces a place to make an emergency landing based on their own personal decision to drink way too much on (or pre) board.

I don’t believe we should ban alcohol in flight, but I do think there should be consequences for people’s personal decisions.