A top Australian investment banker was kicked off a Sydney-bound flight after refusing to turn off his mobile phone and ‘being quirky’ to staff.
New York-based Alan James, a senior banking executive at Macquarie Group, was ordered off Qantas flight QF108 in Los Angeles by the aircraft’s captain because he was being ‘disruptive’, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
But James, 58, who owns a $9 million mansion overlooking Sydney Harbour, continued his bad behaviour and was later stopped from taking a separate connecting flight to Sydney.
He was finally able to travel the following day. The airline’s policy is to ban disruptive passengers from flying for 24 hours.
The obnoxious behaviour took place when a flight attendant told James, who was traveling in business class, to turn off his mobile phone as the aircraft taxied at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport, but he refused.
According to The Australian, staff said the man was ‘being quirky’ and ‘acting in a strange way’ during the flight.
