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My wife and I returned home from Sydney, Australia, on Friday, the 13th of 2026, and had the chance to fly on a Qantas A380 for the first time in business class (review up in a bit). Boarding was a bit of a mess because a small gate was assigned to our massive double-decker jumbo jet.
First class consisted of rows 1-5 downstairs. That boarded first as well as one couple that had escorted boarding and were the first upstairs in business class.
After a short delay, business class was called and quickly filled both the mini cabin near the front of the jet and the main business cabin. My wife was seated in row 20K and I was back in 26K.
After settling in and nearing departure time, my wife started texting me that the passengers in the middle of row 19 near her were being kicked off the flight! She said that the couple was being removed from the jet because the man was “rude.” The couple had already made themselves comfortable when a flight attendant, somewhat forcefully, told the male passenger from across the aisle, “DON’T BE RUDE,” and then walked away.
The passenger then seemed to be very agitated and in a huff and his mood did not seem to improve. Then maybe a minute or two later, the same flight attendant came back and again speaking across to the man said “THAT WAS VERY RUDE” and walked back to the galley area.
A few minutes later, one of the gate agents came onboard and told the man to gather his things. The agent asked the woman if she was traveling with him. She indicated she was and he told her to gather her things as well. They were both to come off the jet with him!
We never really found out exactly what the passenger in question said — either time— that was apparently so rude it merited being removed from the jet. Almost immediately after their departure, however, the captain made an announcement: two guests would not be flying with us that night. There would also be a slight delay while their bags were located and offloaded before we could push back from the gate.
This was not the first time I have witnessed a couple kicked off just before departure. But the first time I saw a couple in business class being removed. And I was surprised there was so little push-back from the couple as they seemed to readily comply with the order to deplane.
We are living in interesting times, to say the very least, and Qantas seems to have a zero tolerance policy to those who have a rude attitude or some kind of disruptive behavior onboard – even in a business class seat! – Rene
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How was Australia? Did you cruise??
@dee – Both New Zealand and Australia were amazing. Yes a 12 day NCL cruse in the middle. Will have full coverage over the coming months.
How come you weren’t sitting with your wife???
@Mr Alan Atkinson – I will cover that when I post about the flight but the window side even seats have the best space and experience. There were no seats closer to each other.
Rene, what on earth is the class of seat got to do with their rudeness?
Clearly, you are no Rhodes scholar.
EVERY airline should have 0% tolerance towards rude selfish people.
Your bizarre interpretation of events, and their degree of “kickback” tells us more about you than the trash kicked off.
**”earth” should be capitalized as “Earth.” One would think someone throwing around “Rhodes scholar” would know that. And that the correct term is “Rhodes Scholar.”
Do better.
Mr. Cleverly — when stories of people getting kicked off planes hit mass media, the passengers are almost always in coach. There’s a perception that business and first class passengers are more sophisticated and better behaved than others. Clearly, that’s not necessarily the case in reality.
On top of that, paid business class passengers bring a lot of money to the airline. So, the fact that Quantas told these two to beat it is certainly interesting (though we don’t know if they traveled on points, cash, were non-revs, etc).
Please reread your comment, Mr. Cleverly. You certainly do seem to know something about rudeness.
If this were the case, American Airlines would not have enough flight attendants to staff first-departures our of DFW!
I have no idea what happened on the cited flight, and neither do you.
the innocent partner that also got kicked off the plane through no fault of their own will no doubt sue the airline. fair enough too.
Frequent flyer USA to Australia here. I have homes in both countries. In my experience QANTAS staff are not only zero tolerance but they themselves can be quite rude. This is one reason of several why I fly with them only when there is no other reasonable alternative. My strong preference is either Virgin Australia for domestic travel (home is in Perth), and either United, Delta, Singapore, ANA, Emirates, or Qatar, in that order.
Slightly off topic , but flew once SIN-ADL business & on boarding greeted by male attendant “ evening mate “ !! Hence return was by Malaysian..!!
So basically you have no idea what happened and who was “right” and who was “wrong.” I’ve found Qantas to be one of the few who attempts to keep it civil and to actually enforce the bag rules and seating assignments which I much prefer. Unlike AA who recently let four people join into group 1 from group one because they “might need a minute”…they had 13 bags between them. Good old AA, leading the race to the bottom.