(ConservativeFreePress.com) – A United Airlines flight had to make an unplanned stop in Chicago, reportedly due to a disagreement relating to the in-flight meal on its way to Amsterdam.
The airline, based in Chicago, confirmed to FOX Business that United Flight 20 was diverted to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago following a disturbance from a passenger during the international journey. The flight was initially embarked from George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on Sunday, the United representative shared.
News outlets, referring to tweets from a Twitter user who claimed to have received information from another passenger on board, suggested that the cause of the disruption was the lack of a specific meal choice. It has also been speculated that the passenger might have been consuming alcohol, according to the reports.
Prior to landing at O’Hare, the aircraft completed several loops in the vicinity to reduce fuel levels, as revealed by flight tracking website, Flightradar24.
FOX Business was further informed by the United spokesperson that law enforcement greeted the plane at the gate and escorted the passenger off, before the flight continued on to Amsterdam.
Flightradar24 noted that the total time spent at O’Hare by United Flight 20 was slightly less than two hours.
So far, in 2023, there have been approximately 980 instances of disruptive passengers on US flights, as per the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
In the previous year, the FAA dealt with 2,455 reports of unruly passengers and issued roughly $8.4 million in fines for those who faced enforcement actions. This was a 59% decrease from 2021, when reports surpassed 5,970, the highest in recent history, as per the FAA.
The agency’s then-acting administrator, Billy Noel, stated in April that the FAA maintains a strict “zero tolerance” policy towards disruptive behavior, a policy that became permanent in 2022 to help tackle this ongoing problem.
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