China Airlines passenger causes 40-minute delay after yelling at cabin crew for not speaking Japanese

The New Paper
June 12, 2023

A Japanese passenger on board a China Airlines flight was filmed yelling and abusing flight attendants for not speaking to her in her native language.

The incident on Sunday (June 4) took place on a flight from Fukuoka to Taipei, and caused a take-off delay of nearly 40 minutes.

In a video clip circulating on social media, the passenger is seen standing in the aisle agitated as she berates two female flight attendants.

"Do you speak only Chinese?" she asked in English, gesturing to the attendants. "What are you doing? I'm Japanese here."

In another clip, the cabin manager can be heard asking the Japanese woman to take her seat, and calmly giving her multiple warnings in Mandarin.

"Your current conduct is prohibited under international law," says the cabin manager. "(I am) warning you again of the following violations."

China Airlines, a Taiwanese airline, confirmed to TVBS News that the woman was eventually escorted out of the plane and handed over to airport police.

On Monday, a Twitter user going by the name of "Marizmful" came forward claiming that she was the woman in the video. She explained that she had been "trying to ask for a (cup of) water and called a cabin attendant" but was ignored.

She added that she has, to date, not received any flight refund or insurance payout after being made to disembark from the flight.

Twitter users, most of them Japanese, called the passenger's behaviour "embarrassing" and "highly inappropriate".

Some even accused her of "degrading Japan by pretending to be Japanese", pointing out that Marizmful's tweets in Japanese contained many spelling and grammatical errors.

The tweets were also awkwardly phrased and difficult to understand, with mistakes "even elementary school students would not make", they said.

Others joked about the irony of the passenger expecting Japanese-speaking flight attendants on China Airlines.