A 53-year-old man has been fined for urinating in a cup on an Air New Zealand flight next to a teenage girl before spilling some of the contents on a flight attendant after he stumbled in the aisle.
The incident happened back in December 2023 but has only just come to light after the mother of the girl spoke out to New Zealand’s online Stuff publication.
The mother was sitting in the aisle seat next to her 15-year-old daughter in the middle seat on the plane that had arrived at Sydney Airport following a three-hour flight from Auckland.
There was no gate available for the plane so the pilots shut down the engines while they waited on the tarmac for a gate to become available. Around 20 minutes had passed when the pair suddenly became aware that the man sitting in the window seat beside them was urinating in a cup.
With the engines shut off, the cabin was quiet and the sound of the man urinating in a cup was unmistakable. “It was very obvious what was happening,” the mother said.
“There was no mistaking what the sound was, and I just looked straight at my daughter, and my daughter looked straight at me”.
The mother and daughter got up from their seat and went to the back of the plane to tell the flight attendant, but they were followed by the man – presumably so that he could pour the contents of the cup down the toilet.
Unfortunately, the man tripped as he got close to the galley at the back of the plane and ended up spilling a “good amount” on a flight attendant.
After going to the toilet, the man was pulled aside by flight attendants, and the police were called. The Australian Federal Police arrested the man and he was later charged with acting in an offensive or disorderly manner affecting safety, contrary to section 91.525(4) of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998.
The case was heard in late February, and the man was slapped with an AU$600 fine.
The mother, however, remains unhappy with how the AFP and Air New Zealand handled the incident after they were left humiliated when law enforcement escorted them off the plane in front of the other passengers.
Air New Zealand refused to provide compensation to the mother and daughter, but following three separate complaints, the airline offered them a gift basket.
The airline says it can’t comment on this specific incident, but Chief Operational Integrity and Safety Officer David Morgan said ‘abhorrent behaviour’ like urinating in a cup would lead to a ban.
“If behaviour like this were to happen on our aircraft, our normal process would be to call the local law enforcement agencies and do our own internal investigations. Unless there were exceptional circumstances, this sort of abhorrent behaviour would lead to the passenger being banned,” Morgan explained.
“We will not stand for abhorrent behaviour that impacts other customers and our staff. It’s frustrating for us to have to deal with behaviour like this from a small number of people when most of our passengers are fantastic,” Morgan continued.
“We apologise to any customers who have experienced poor behaviour from a fellow passenger and would like to reassure our customers we take issues like this seriously.”
Air New Zealand says that it bans between five to ten customers every month disruptive and unacceptable behaviour.
