Aisle or window? Bloody seat quarrel delays Vietnam Airlines flight

A Vietnamese man has been fined VND15 million ($660) for punching another passenger on a domestic flight after the latter refused to move to his allocated seat.

The Northern Airport Authority said in a statement Tuesday that it had punished a 46-year-old man, only identified as Phuc, for disturbing order on a flight.

He and another passenger, named Dung, 41, got caught up in the row soon after boarding a Vietnam Airlines flight from Hanoi to Saigon on Friday afternoon, local media reported.

Phuc’s boarding ticket said he had an aisle seat but found Dung in his place. After Dung refused to move the confrontation quickly became physical, resulting in Phuc giving Dung a bloody nose. An investigation found Dung had been allocated a window seat.

The row delayed the flight and the pilot only took off after having both men removed from the plane.

This is not the first time such fighting on planes has been recorded in Vietnam.

Last December, a fight that broke out between two Vietnamese women on a flight from Hanoi to Moscow resulted in both of them being given six-month travel bans.

In a more dramatic episode of in-flight violence, two women delayed a Vietnam Airlines flight in late 2014 by slapping, kicking and throwing their high heels at each other over a man who was sitting right between them.

One of the women was the man’s ex-lover and the other his wife. They were fined ($350) each after being escorted off the plane.