Worst Passengers of the Week: The Students with Questionable Taste in Music

Every Friday, FlyerTalk looks back at the week’s most charming individuals. While there are always plenty of contenders for our Worst Passenger of the Week award, only one lucky flyer can take home the glory. Here are this week’s winners.

Third Place – This “Dumbass”

A passenger being caught with a gun at the airport is becoming so commonplace that it almost never makes the cut for Worst Passenger of the Week. After all, it seems almost every month a new record is being set for the number of handguns seized at TSA checkpoints.

If one of the passengers foolhardy enough to get caught with a loaded weapon in their carry-on happens to be a celebrity athlete, however, it becomes a little more interesting. If that sports personality happens to already be out on bond from previous assault charges, our attention is captured. If the player involved happens to play for the universally despised Philadelphia Eagles and his coach takes to the media to rant about the utter stupidity of the situation, then outright schadenfreude starts to take hold.

On Wednesday, Eagles linebacker Nigel Bradham was caught at Miami International Airport (MIA) with a loaded handgun in his bag. By Thursday, offensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was very clearly expressing his disappointment to a national audience.

“You do dumbass things, pretty soon you’re going to be labeled a dumbass,” Schwartz told USA Today. “And he’s got a lot of ground to make up. It’s not just him. It’s the rest of us also. It’s everybody who wears that helmet … He’s got to earn some trust back.”

Schwartz wasn’t done chiding his star player. The coach quickly dismissed the player’s excuse that he simply forgot the gun was in his bag.

“The worst thing I’ve ever forgotten at the airport, I think, has been a razor or a belt or something like that,” he added. “I’m the guy in line that if that person five people ahead has a bottle of water in their luggage, I’m putting my hands up like, ‘Seriously, do you ever travel? Do you not know that you can’t take water in?’

The Runner-up – Any of You Guys Recall Seeing Afonso Lately?

A TAAG Angola Airlines flight from Porto Airport (OPO) in Portugal to Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport (LAD) in Angola was forced to make an emergency landing at Lisbon Portela Airport (LIS) in order to drop off an accidental stowaway. The flight was reportedly airborne for about 30 minutes before ramp crews noticed that one of their own was missing and alerted the captain that a baggage handler might still be in the baggage compartment of the aircraft.

Upon landing at LIS, emergency workers discovered the ground crew member locked in the baggage compartment and suffering from hypothermia. The plane had reached a cruising altitude of nearly 35,000 feet before the pilot learned that there might be an extra passenger in the cargo hold. At that altitude, unheated sections of an aircraft can quickly reach sub-zero temperatures.

The rescued baggage handler told authorities that he was loading live animals into the aircraft when he inexplicably lost consciousness and was inadvertently locked in the baggage compartment. The unintentionally well-traveled employee is expected to make a full recovery from the surprise misadventure.

The Winner – Bomb-Bomb-Bomb-Bomb-Barbara-Ann

A group of four students traveling from Manchester Airport (MAN) to Dalaman Airport (DLM) for a holiday break say Thomas Cook Airlines profiled them as “bearded Asians” resulting in an embarrassing and unnecessary detention and legal hassle upon landing in Turkey. According to media reports, however, the airline claims that in addition to being generally disruptive, the travel companions also allegedly used a mobile phone to loudly play a song in which the word “bomb” was repeated several times.

The group of friends says that a poor choice of music selection had nothing to do with the incident and insist cabin crew members had it out for them because of their ethnic background. Nineteen-year-old Nabeal Iqbal, 21-year-old Hammad Ahmed, 23-year-old Shabad Diaz and 18-year-old Tasiq Ali in fact, deny playing any music at all and say they were surprised to find themselves escorted from the plane by security forces.

“At the front the cabin crew manager accused us of saying the word ‘bomb’ and taking a bag with a bomb into the toilet and leaving it there,” Iqbal told reporters. “We know we didn’t say bomb and we didn’t have a bomb. It was embarrassing. I would never say anything like that on an airplane. It’s always in the news, people getting escorted off planes after 9/11. It’s best not to joke about anything like that on a plane. It was a really embarrassing experience. I just don’t think we were treated fairly at all.”

The travel companions say that they were all released without charges shortly after being taken into custody. Unfortunately for the group, in this case, Thomas Cook, it seems, had the last word. When the four passengers arrived at the airport for their flight home, they learned they were no longer welcome to fly on Thomas Cook Airlines.

Thomas Cook officials released an all-too-familiar boilerplate statement regarding the incident. “Four individuals were extremely disruptive throughout this flight and were refused carriage on the basis of their abusive behavior,” the airline said. “We do not tolerate such severely disruptive behavior towards our crew or passengers and their collective and sustained actions were entirely unacceptable.”

[Photo: Fotolia/AP]