Video: Passengers brawl with airline staff over delayed flight
A group of passengers have been caught on camera by a journalist brawling with airline staff over a delayed flight.
The scene occurred on Friday night at Beijing International Airport after a China Eastern flight was delayed a number of times, and staff appeared to go AWOL.
The boarding gate number kept changing and there seemed to be no answers from staff about when the flight would be leaving.
A group of travellers were particularly unimpressed when they approached a service desk to find no staff from China Eastern present, reports ninemsn.com.
Two hours later, they returned and demanded other airport staff track down China Eastern workers.
When staff eventually appeared, they denied leaving the desk unmanned, and a manager tried - and failed - to calm the situation.
The journalist who managed to capture footage of the scene, Matt Sheehan, wrote on Beijing Cream: "China Eastern's position is that after a brief delay in information, the flight has consistently been set to depart from Gate 40 once the plane arrives. Our claim that monitors have been displaying a revolving stream of gates is met with absolute denial from the employees: the monitors have always displayed Gate 40."
When passengers demand the employee to look at the screen and compare it to what it says on their ticket, he refuses.
"The flight has always been scheduled for Gate 40... No, I won't turn around and look at the screen... No, there won't be any compensation for you passengers. OK?"
This doesn't go down too well with the passengers, and one man decides to throw a plastic bottle, which hits the manager on the cheek.
The manager has to be held back by other staff, and Matt writes: "Pushed up against a wall he grabs for the only large projectile on hand: a metal stool. Cursing the stench of his assailants' mothers' reproductive organs, he lifts the stool for launch. Lucky for him, one of his co-workers manages to get a hand on it, deflecting the missile onto the counter."
Other China Eastern staff members eventually manage to calm the situation and, four hours after scheduled take-off, China Eastern Airlines MU5177 was able to take off.
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