It’s the ultimate tension at the heart of air travel – how far can you recline your seat without irritating the passenger behind?
For one couple, just one inch was far enough to cause a row that earned them a lifetime ban from Cathay Pacific.
A young Chinese woman complained to the airline, saying she was harassed by the pair in the seats behind her.
She then shared footage of the spat that took place on a flight from Hong Kong to London on Sept 17.
“The lady sitting behind me asked me to put my seat up because it was blocking her husband’s view of the TV,” the passenger, who does not give her name, said in a video posted on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), China’s version of Instagram.
“I politely declined, and she started stretching her feet on to my armrest, kicking my arm and cursing at me like crazy,” she continued.
Attempting to mediate the situation, a flight attendant suggested that she raise her seat, but she said she refused. “I felt my personal space had been completely violated.”
‘Some nasty comments’
In the footage of the incident that she posted online, the dispute between the woman and the couple from Hong Kong then escalated into a full-blown argument and semi-tussle filled with xenophobic insults.
“When [the other passenger] realised my Cantonese wasn’t so great, she started throwing around some nasty comments, calling me a ‘mainland girl’ and other derogatory stuff,” the woman said.
Cantonese is mostly spoken in Hong Kong and in some southern Chinese regions, while Mandarin is the main language of mainland China.
After she started filming, the husband of the woman behind joined in, putting his band on her armrest and “shaking it like crazy”, she said.
At one point in the video, the other woman sticks her middle finger up to the camera, along with other rude hand gestures as she pulls the chair back and forth.
Other passengers then got involved. A female voice can be heard asking in Mandarin, “You’re old enough – why are you bullying a young girl?”
In Cantonese, others shouted: “You’re embarrassing us Hongkongers!” and “Stop saying you’re from Hong Kong!”
The woman was eventually allowed to move seats – only, she said, because she had the support of other passengers.
‘We will deny future travel’
“What if no one had backed me up? Would I have just been left to deal with it on my own?” she asked, before addressing Cathay Pacific directly: “Shouldn’t treating passengers differently get some consequences?”
On Saturday, Cathay Pacific said it wanted to “sincerely apologise” for the “unpleasant experience”, explaining that the airline had a “zero-tolerance policy” for bad behaviour.
“We will deny future travel on any Cathay Group flights to the two customers involved in this incident,” it added.
After gaining a snowballing amount of attention on the Chinese app, the woman later posted a follow-up video, saying it was an “isolated case” that did not need to be “blown out of proportion”.