A Canadian family hauled off a Sunwing jet on Friday night, 1 February appeared in a Bermuda court on Monday, 4 February.
David MacNeil, 54, of Mabou pleaded guilty to behaving in a disorderly manner by using abusive and offensive language on the flight to the Dominican Republic from Halifax.
His wife, Darlene MacNeil, 52, pleaded guilty to disobeying a lawful order by a flight attendant.
The couple were fined US$500 each, with a penalty of 10 days in jail if they failed to pay immediately.
David MacNeil Jr., 22, denied a charge of smoking on the aircraft, while he and his father both denied disobeying a lawful order.
The Crown elected to offer no evidence on the matters that the defendants denied, and the smoking charges were dropped.
The court heard that minutes into the flight, the younger David MacNeil rose from his seat to use the washroom and crew members asked him to return to his seat telling him he was not allowed to walk around the cabin until the captain had turned off the seatbelt sign.
The father also tried to access the washroom and was also instructed to return to his seat. The court heard they were then joined by Darlene MacNeil, who asked that her son be allowed to use the toilet.
When the seatbelt sign was deactivated, the son used the washroom and returned to his seat. Prosecutors also said that two hours later, a crew member noticed MacNeil Jr. leaving a washroom smelling strongly of cigarette smoke.
The court heard that after an unsuccessful search for a cigarette butt in the washroom, the crew made the decision to divert the 180-passenger flight to Bermuda to remove the MacNeils.
The flight resumed Saturday afternoon, 3 February without the MacNeils on board.
Daryl McWilliams, vice-president of media relations for Sunwing, said from Toronto that the unscheduled landing could cost the vacation airline as much as CDN$50,000.
“That’s based on the cost of the landing fees in Bermuda (and) the cost of flying a mechanic to Bermuda to check the aircraft out for stress fractures because it had to land overweight, because of the amount of fuel that was on board.”
Additional costs arose because the plane had to be searched, in accordance with Transport Canada regulations, for unextinguished cigarette butts. Sunwing had to pay for hotels and meals in Bermuda and the Dominican Republic for passengers stuck in both countries because the flight was diverted.
He said Sunwing intends to seek recourse from the MacNeils.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/635132-up-in-smoke-sunwing-to-sue-mabou-family-for-diverted-flight-costs