Man Doing In-Flight Yoga Turned Violent Owes $44,000 in Restitution

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Recently, there’s been an influx in cases of bad behaviors in flight resulting in diversions.  A lot of these diversions were alcohol related, which led to some bloggers questioning whether or not alcohol should be served in flight.

View from the Wing suggested that very thing:

To be sure most flights have no issue with alcohol at all. But it sure seems as though onboard alcohol-related incidents are reaching epidemic proportions. And the diversions they cause are costly to airlines and passengers alike.

I am strongly against banning alcohol in flight.  This is a huge case of passengers needing to take responsibility for their actions.  (As well as flight crew making sure they don’t overserve customers).

I suggested that we make the consequences greater and put the cost of the diversion on the misbehaving customer.

A man is facing the consequences of his actions in flight now after a court determined that he owes $44,000 in restitution to the airlines.

To sum up the situation, from an article in the Consumerist:

According to the FBI, a recent United Airlines flight heading from Honolulu International Airport to Narita International Airport in Japan turned around because a passenger refused to stop doing yoga in the back of the plane and return to his seat, the Associated Press reports.

…

He also attempted to head-butt and bite some Marines on the flight who tried to get him back to his seat, Assistant U.S. Attorney Darren Ching said at the man’s detention hearing Wednesday.

In a follow-up article, they reported that the man had to pay restitution for the trouble he caused.

The man, a Korean tourist who had been flying from Hawaii to Japan last March, was sentenced on Friday by a federal judge in Honolulu to time served, amounting to about 13 days, the Associated Press reports, and ordered him to pay $44,235 in restitution. He pleaded guilty in April to interfering with a flight crew and was allowed to return home to South Korea at that time.

He’ll be under court supervision for three years, which is the amount of time he has to pay what he owes, the Associated Press reports.

This seems like a fair result to me.  Why should the airline consistantly have to absorb the cost of passenger’s bad behavior?  I hope as more cases like these happen, the cost of bad behavior becomes a stronger deterrent.