Avianca Sues Couple For $90,000 Over Disruptive Behavior On Flight

Like Ryanair, Avianca is also taking a stance against unruly behavior, hitting passengers where it hurts them the most, their pockets.

The Colombian carrier has filed a suit against a couple for US $90,000 in damages following an incident on board a flight to Sao Paulo Guarulhos. On July 17, 2024, Avianca flight AV249 was climbing out from Bogota (BOG), Colombia destined to Sao Paulo (GRU), Brazil, when the pilots were forced to stop their climb and return to Bogota after a mobile phone battery suffered thermal runaway.

The airline later reported that two passengers had become unruly mid-flight, with one of them throwing a phone, resulting in the battery overheating.

Thermal runaway is defined as a situation where a battery enters an uncontrollable, self-heating state, leading to overheating, fire, explosion, or failure. This usually happens when the battery is damaged, resulting in it generating more heat than it can dissipate.

Based on the details, it appears the situation was generally under control as the crew spent three hours in a holding pattern to burn off fuel before landing at Bogota. It was also reported that parts of the aircraft’s interior was damaged, but it’s unclear if it was a result of the hot phone, or because of the fighting couple.

I would imagine that if the battery overheating were seriously out of control, they might have considered an overweight landing to get the aircraft on the ground as soon as possible.

Nonetheless, the incident still inconvenienced all 161 passengers on board, and factoring in damage to the interior, it’s not hard to see how the extra costs add up.

In a translated statement, Captain Juan Esteban Kappaz Saad, Head of flight operations at Avianca said:

“In Avianca, the safety of our passengers and crew is our top priority. Such incidents are unacceptable, so we are taking all the legal measures at our disposal to hold the culprits accountable and ensure that such acts have the respective consequences. We reiterate our call on the competent authorities to strengthen the harshest sanctions on disruptive passengers who with their conduct affect other passengers and crew.”

Like the Ryanair case, Avianca isn’t suing solely to recover the extra spent to re-accommodate passengers, but to send a message to other would-be travelers that unruly behavior will not be tolerated. In 2024, the airline saw more than 400 cases of disruptive behavior, up 16% from 2023, and up a whopping 118% when compared to noted incidents in 2022.

Featured image: aceebee/Flickr | CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic

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