Passenger ordered to pay more than $5,000 in fuel costs after flight diverted due to bad behavior

Shouldn't be unusual. Should be the norm. An excellent idea.

Great news, they need to do more of this instead of waving off the incident. If only the US Federal Court systems had such johnsons.

On top of the fine, he should never be allowed to fly on any airlines forever!

It doesn’t even begin to pay the real costs of a divert which include airplane time, Mx cycles, late connection/missed connection expenses, crew costs including recrew for timing out etc. Then you have the costs to the other passengers who miss meetings, pay for unused hotels, limos, missed cruises etc.

Agree, and it should have been cost + 50%. Plus disruption to customers on that flight and any ensuing trips delayed.

Only $5,000.... Way too low... Should have been at least 20,000 and some Jail Time! No reason for this kind of crap and no compassion for them.

$5000 doesn't compensate passengers that miss international connections, cruise ships, court appearances, weddings, job interviews, etc.
Stop "going back." Carry a straight-jacket and hog-tie disruptive passengers.

I was on a trip from Calgary to San Diego a number of years ago. At the time, it was required to switch planes in Denver. As I boarded the flight in Denver (this flight started in Minneapolis and continued onto San Diego), I saw that an individual was seated in my assigned seat in business class. Instead of engaging with that person I talked to the flight attendant who was standing right there and suggested that maybe the seat was double booked. The FA asked the person to see his boarding pass...he refused. She asked again and after much cajoling, he finally got up and shoved it into her face. He was order to the back of the plane to sit where his assignment was. He was screaming all the way down the aisle. I sat in my seat and apologised to my seatmates (yes, I am a Canadian). There was continued noise coming from the back of the plane about one thing or another while I noticed the steward was on the bridge phone. He waiting there until two cops showed up with their guns drawn. YIKES! They hauled this guys a** off in handcuffs all the while he was screaming and accusing the FA that she pushed him. What a scene and a bad start to a very bad business trip. After takeoff, the Captain came to see me and talked about the incident while expressing his regrets that it occurred. I was required to fill out some sort of incident report about the event. I think that aircraft staff have to take a lot of crap from a lot of passengers while keeping their composure. It is a tough job with not a whole lot of compensation. There should be no mercy shown by the courts in these types of dealings. Not only do these type of incident risk passenger safety, they also delay flights and can upset all sort of schedules for not only airlines, but for passengers as well.

This should be standard rules for disruption, make them pay all costs and even compensate other passengers. Everyone who flies airlines should not have to be inconvenienced by all the crazy folks.

This should be standard practice for all these people in the U.S. who think they are the ones who own the aircraft and get kicked off for being stupid.

Maybe you could try and scare them, get a 7ft tall bouncer to meet the passengers as they board, that should scare the mentally ill and prompt a drunk to piss the bouncer off and be de-boarded ... BTW, mental Illness does not know what money, fines or jail mean . . .

Should also be an automatic no fly ban for min of 10 years….because most will never pay their actual fines.

We need to bring back proper etiquette when flying. Airlines should start banning disruptive passengers across the board plus fines. I just wish that U.S.A. imposed such punishment and show some cahones coz it's getting out of hand. People used to dress up when flying and I've seen people dressed like they're going in the beach on international flight.

Oh, yeah!!!

Genuine question, are airlines sometimes overzealous with their diversions?

I know it is nuanced but I sometimes wonder if they really need to cancel everyone's flight because of a disruptor.

Does Australia have a small-claims court procedure that the affected passengers could use to recoup their individual losses? That could have a further dampening effect on the behavior.

Well, this is one to put in the "Good News" file today! It seems perfectly sensible to me to have the offending party at least partially reimburse* the cost of the problem he caused.

*In addition to the fuel, there would probably be additional landing fees for that specific flight, more operating costs depending on the added time on the plane caused by the return, plus logistics costs in not having that plane where it needs to be when it needs to be there, potential for shift time constraints on the crew, and probably other things that I can't think of at the moment. The dude should at least cover the fuel, eh?

Interesting... I wonder if the flight was over half way to the destination? If so, why did the other passengers have to endure unnecessary airtime, likely disrupting their lives more than the person who was fined! The article doesn't give many details.

Oh lets just dump toxic liquid onto our precious earth instead of beating the crap out of the asshole