A plane was left sitting on the runway for more than an hour after a passenger refused to stow her luxury handbag under the seat.
The flight was ready to take off from an airport in the Chinese municipality of Chongqing when the pilot was forced to bring the plane back to the gate because of a brewing row in economy class.
The woman was reportedly approached by the flight crew to have her stow her Louis Vuitton handbag under the seat like every other passenger.
But she kept rebuffing the crew, adamant she was not putting her Vuitton bag on the floor. Footage of the incident shared on the social media platform Douyin shows the woman engaged in a heated argument with a flight assistant.
The woman is then seen pulling out her phone and playing on it as she ignores the cabin crew and their requests. The video then showed other passengers applauding as the woman was ultimately escorted off the plane over an hour after the scheduled departure time.
A Louis Vuitton handbag sells for approximately $3,000 (£2,317) in China, according to the South China Morning Post. By comparison, an economy-class ticket from Chongqing to the Hebei province in northern China on China Express Airlines costs around $110 (£85).
Social media users on Chinese platforms were split on the incident, with some suggesting cabin crew had escalated the incident.
One said: “The flight attendant could have offered her a bag to put her handbag in. Is it really necessary to waste an hour and kick her off the plane?”
But others hit out at the passengers for failing to comply with the widely observed bag-storing rule.
One said: “The flight attendant did not insist on the rule for nothing. The woman should value her safety and that of other passengers rather than the bag.”
Passengers are usually required to store their large cabin bags in the overhead lockers above their seats while smaller items such as handbags and backpacks can be stowed underneath the seat in front of them to avoid blockages in the event of an emergency.
