Chinese woman assaults TAA crew

A Chinese couple and their friends were taken by police after throwing hot water on a flight attendant on board a Thai AirAsia (TAA) chartered flight, forcing a return to Don Mueang airport.

They were on board Thai AirAsia flight FD 9101 bound for Nanjing which took off at 5.55pm on Thursday with 174 passengers and four cabin crew, the airline said in a statement on Friday.

Witnesses said the man threatened to blow up the plane and his girlfriend told other passengers she wanted to commit suicide, Charles Liu posted on the Nanfang Insider blog on Friday.

Earlier, the couple were angry when they discovered they were not sitting together, which happened because they were part of a tour group seated in alphabetical order.

A flight attendant accommodated by finding adjoining seats for them, but they still complained loudly, Mr Liu wrote.

During the flight, the woman bought a bowl of instant noodles and asked for boiling water which she splashed on one of the flight attendants.

Chaos ensued and the man threatened to blow up the plane while his girlfriend said she wanted to kill herself.

Passengers say dinner cutlery was used and the couple finally calmed down once other passengers became involved.

The incident forced the captain to return to Don Mueang and they were asked to disembark, TAA said.

Police later took the couple and their two friends to Don Muang police station where they settled the dispute with the flight attendant and the captain.

A TAA spokesman said today the Chinese woman was allowed to leave Thailand this evening on a TAA flight back to Nanjing after she agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of compensation to the affected cabin attendant.

The TAA cabin attendant was not seriously injured. She was altready treated and is now "okay".

Incidents involving angry outbursts by Chinese tourists have prompted Beijing to issue guidelines on behaving abroad. The wide-ranging guidelines caution travellers, many of them venturing outside China for the first time, against many types of objectionable behaviour, including spitting in public.

In February, according to Thai and Chinese news reports, 27 members of a Chinese tour group were ejected from a China Eastern Airlines flight before takeoff from Phuket after brawling over seating arrangements.

Almost 4.1 million Chinese travellers, or 18.7% of all foreign arrivals, visited Thailand in the first 10 months of this year, making them far and away the country's largest tourist market.