The Most Cringeworthy Way to Get Kicked Off of a Flight?

Everyone enjoys a cheeky pint before a flight. But, a British Airways cabin crew member says that Rebecca Cross and Christopher Pickering took their drinking too far before their British Airways flight to Marseille, France.

Our Flight Was Delayed

In the court case that followed this incident, Cross, 37, and Pickering, 45, admitted that they had enjoyed “five or six drinks” in the lounge while they waited for their flight which was delayed by two hours.

It started to become clear that “five or six drinks” may have been a few too many when the cabin crew at Heathrow decided that, for safety reasons, the couple were too “stumbling drunk” to sit in the emergency exit row seats that they booked. Rather than bar them from flying at all, the cabin crew reassigned them to seats in the back of the plane.

Things Get Confrontational

The couple moved seats without incident. Then, as the plane taxied down the runway a crew member caught Cross with “her stockings off and legs high in the air.” And–just a quick warning: things are about to get more inappropriate–“The male had her left hand on the vagina area and was moving his hand up and down.”

Then, crewmember Valerie Hughes, confronted them and asked, “what do you think you’re doing?” The couple then reportedly froze but the man “kept his hand on the vagina area.” Hughes then directed Cross to put her dress down, then the plane returned to the gate where both Cross and Pickering were taken to the London Heathrow police station where they admitted to a charge of “entering the aircraft when drunk.”

Because both Pickering and Cross plead guilty to drunk flying on their September 16th flight, the judge did not move to sentence them with jail time or charge them with indecent exposure. However, they have been banned from British Airways for 12 months. Pickering was also handed a £2000 fine. Cross was given a 12-month community order and forced to undertake 60 hours of unpaid work. She has also been disqualified from driving for 26 months but that was related to a drunk driving charge in July 2019.