VietNamNet Bridge - The lingering controversy around Vietnam Airlines and its passenger Le Minh Khuong has drawn nationwide attention. Local media has over the past two weeks jumped on the bandwagon to give extensive coverage of the event as it unfolds.

Mr. Le Minh Khuong

What’s the story? Nothing has been made clear, though. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam is still probing the case. So the airline and the passenger as the Vietnam taekwondo team coach have been pointing the finger at each other since news about the incident made headlines early last week.

In a report on the event on Flight VN1169 from Hanoi to HCMC in the evening of last Monday, the chief attendant, Trinh Thi Hoa, described Khuong’s behaviors like shouting as a violation of civil aviation security rules.

News reports said Khuong requested the chief flight attendant to let him disembark in Danang after the Boeing 777-200 aircraft was forced to divert from HCMC to Danang due to heavy rain, instead of landing at Tan Son Nhat Airport.

While a ground staff of Danang International Airport in the central city of the same name was processing his request, the captain said the refueling process was complete and asked the chief attendant to persuade Khuong and another passenger, who also wanted to leave, to get back to the plane for takeoff, said Hoa’s report. These passengers agreed to fly on to HCMC but, according to the report, a problem happened when Khuong insisted Hoa return his boarding pass which he earlier handed to the ground employee.

After Hoa’s reporting to the captain, the plane got back to the parking area while it was moving toward the runway, then security forces stormed into the aircraft to escort Khuong out of the plane because, Hoa said in the report, he refused to leave a business-class seat to go back to his economy-class seat and even made noise.

However, Khuong and some witnesses on the flight said he just wanted his boarding pass back and was not making any noise. Khuong’s lawyer Tran Thu Nam said his client would bring the case to court if the airline declined to apologize for the physical harassment which he said was committed by the security men at Danang airport. He said they were using force to remove him from the aircraft.

A statement which the airline issued after the in-flight incident is intended to justify its expulsion of the martial arts instructor from the plane by naming three business-class passengers who agreed to bear witness to what was happening. The airline even released a letter written in English by one of its witnesses, Eileen Tan, who is general director of Viking Travel & Media. Phap Luat Vietnam newspaper calls into question the integrity and objectivity of this witness since Viking Travel & Media is a second-tier ticketing agent of Vietnam Airlines. There are further grounds for doubt about her fairness as, according to the online newspaper VnExpress.net, the letter which the airline said was authored by Tan contains a defamatory statement that reads: “Shut up you bloody gay” that she uttered when Vietnamese singer Quang Ha said, “No, no” to keep her from taking pictures of the incident.

Ha and his brother and manager Quang Cuong said they would act as witnesses for Khuong if a case against Vietnam Airlines is filed in a court. The two and movies director Tran Luc, who was also on board the plane, said while Khuong was courteously explaining that he just wanted the chief flight attendant to return his boarding pass and that he did not intend to disembark but the security men dragged him away and even pushed him down to the floor, reports another online paper, Vietnamnet.

Khuong’s legal representative, lawyer Tran Thu Nam, said he has collected sufficient evidence against the airline, including a four-minute video clip shot by a passenger, while the airline also said it has witnesses and video showing Khuong broke the aviation security rules. The spat over who was right or who was wrong is certainly going on until the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam announces the results of an inspection.

But the way the chief attendant handled such an in-flight situation shows a lack of professionalism as pointed out by VnExpress. Khuong might have had improper behaviors but the chief attendant took the issue too far. She could have chosen a professional approach toward a demanding passenger rather than a strong measure. In such a situation, she of course had no time to tell the captain the whole story, so she must have kept it brief. And the short information the captain got from her then was an imminent threat to security, so his decision to call the security forces at Danang airport for help might have been justified.

What Vietnam Airlines has done so far to defend flight attendant Hoa is clearly biased against its king – the customer. A little apology can help settle disputes as shown by a U.S. study. The airline should have apologized in the first place, and then looked into the matter, instead of threatening to put Khuong on its flight ban list. Taking the blame even when it is not one’s fault shows a high level of professionalism; otherwise, it will become a public relations disaster.

Source: SGT