harsh4

"Instead of just paying the THB900 fee to have the bag checked, the mans temper tantrum caused the cabin crew to invite him off the plane.

900 baht to check in your luggage? Rip off merchants.

yes... also the reason for such regular temper related trouble speciially with budget airlnes is underlying stress that builds up. Budget travel is advertised as hassle free basics only travel... not a minefield of hidden costs and charges that aggravate and anger a passenger... whatever happened to old fashioned service ? dunno all the specifics of this case to take sides but an airline arguing back with a passenger and having him removed off a plane becasue he lost his temper should not be happening in the industry. Agreed some passengers can be very troublesome, but airlines need to use such extreme measures as a last resort. Appears all the crew ganged up against him to throw him out. Did anybody try to defuse the situation and find an alternative solution ?

The footage, which was apparently taken without the flight attendant′s knowledge, is currently being circulated on a number of websites.

I can't find the dam_n footage anywhere! Naturally, I just want to verify that the story is correct because I am deeply shocked at the revelations.

:-) I am sure everyone appreciates how empathetic a person you are...:-)

where's the sense in going on a world tour to tell others of what's going on ? all these countries have embassies in Thailand that monitor the situation and I am sure somebody in there follows all media too (including social media)... :-)

this is a pretty square on 'som nam na' for Mr.T who had organized a similar tractor procession calling it 'caravan khon chon' and farmers giving him roses.. was that in 2006 ?

Where I live the are just now planting a new crop of rice while these farmers and protesting who planting the rice? No wonder their poor.

In my wife's village, which is 100% red shirt, most have not been paid and have no money to buy supplies for a new crop. Many owe money to illegal money lenders and are in dire straights.

they're, their, there... some spell check might be an idea... :-) dire straits too... but yes, agree and empathize with the farmers' plight... sad to see...

Good, now let's see the rest of these self-serving, bank balance filling scumbags nabbed

Surely not all the Puea Thai politicians are that bad, surely?

any relation to the gathering momentum of the farmers' protests ?

I guess Thaksin needs that coup so bad

Yep. Thaksin ordered them to confront the PDRC because he wants a coup which will re-install him as PM. We all know the Thai military are with him, so this makes perfect sense.

a coup will derail the 'reform before election' agenda and provide reinforcement to his 'I am democratic and come from elections' line and paint the protest movement in a bad light via Amsterdam and other media PR machinery... if no coup and government pushed out for being unable to manage the crisis, then it's game over for Thaksin, as no chance of coming back to power and pushing for amnesty bill and mega money making loans etc... this is a last ditch effort by a desperate man who will stoop to any level... unless you imply that the protesters are lobbing bombs and grenades at their own rallies, this seems pretty clear...

How about this if Thaksin returns to Thailand to face his jail term. That should piss off Suthep. Thaksin would serve his two years in a 4 star jail have access to his people and just control this situation from within Thailand. The PTP will stay in power and once his term is up (out after 1 and half years for good behavior) he will be back free man. I love to see the face of Suthep if this happened.

There absolutely no chance of that happening. Thaksin wouldn't come back if he had to spend a single day in jail.

exactly... Thaksin is his own biggest obstacle too... for some reason, few people associate the creation of all his 'enemies' or detractors to his own failings... all this would never have started had he just paid the tax on the sale of all those shares to Temasek holdings (the ample rich company saga)... and how he engineered the change in that law 2 days before the sale transaction took place... oh well... let's hope there's no violence this time...

all this talk of 'democracy'...everybody seems to have the ownership of the term and what it ought to stand for... and all this righteous stuff from critics of the supposed 'anti democratic forces' and various colors of shirts and what have you... what the protests in reality are about is slander and mega corruption - moral and otherwise... buying or manipulating the electorate might be construed by some as okay by the rules as each citizen has a vote and you count them once they are in (regardless of what methods you might use to acquire them)... and once you form 'your' government what is it that you set about doing ? how democratic is it to buy or manipulate the law enforcement apparatus, muzzle or railroad the media into submission thru lawsuits or threats, attempt to bribe the judiciary and even threaten to impeach them if they do their duty, use a gang of armed thugs that intimidate any dissent or perceived obstacles to you agenda... have an openly authoritative style of functioning... all with the shameless pursuit of robbing the national treasure and assets and laying your hands on any and all the money in sight... the protesters are rebelling against all this and not trying to obstruct any democratic systems for their fellow citizens... surely everyone wants a transparent and fair government... has the current administration provided that ? What is the track record of this administration and it's predecessors (of the same party or family of parties) ? Why it that the educated populace and the intelligentsia/students/artists and professionals are against their methods ? Surely all of these cannot be blind or brainwashed or inherently against democracy as is alleged... or even against their uneducated fellow countrymen from the rural areas... this type of spin to polarize the country is also one of the points the protesters seem to be against...

This protest appears to be about stopping large scale abuse and the danger of losing one's beloved country to the schemes of a dodgy operator... in the minds of the protesters it is a perfectly legitimate and timely intervention to save their country and homeland... this is what is being spoken of from the protest leaders and supporters daily...

how many of the non thai contributors to this forum would allow such abuse and meddling by an upstart billionaire in their home countries and sit idly and watch ? it's easy to judge someone else and point fingers... thais are by and large a peace loving and hospitable and accommodating population... not a single thai (of any color shirt or affiliation) deserves to be blindsided or tricked into believing there are monsters out there and one businessman's family is their only savior... All this has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with money, power and ego and ambition... let's not get distracted and let's have the best for all thais as our hearfelt desire... getting caught in rhetoric and conventional ideological traps only delays things... love and peace to all of Thailand and all thais... there is no need for coloured shirts and sticks and batons and guns and hateful speeches and Skype calls and instructions form overseas... let good sense prevail...

no or little training in reading maps ? Or thinking on those lines... locations and places are in relation to other places or landmarks... thinking of a location witout the help of another known landmark might be hard for them... nobody knows which way is north or east or south or west... cities are unplanned...

I think the whole world is very lucky that you don't have the qualifications to be in charge! Why does it matter what someone LOOKS like people are still people and deserve respect from others!!

Nah......someone who dresses and looks like a terrorist deserves suspicion before respect.

Terrorists don't consider you to be a person, so why would you say people are still people?

Suspicion before respect.

for today's day and age, he has the 'wrong' looks. Suspicion before respect... maybe (indeed yes just as erring on the side of caution maight be wise)... but it seems there is a murky methodology involved in the questioning and detention. It took 4 days for a US official to show up ?? If he was a real hard ass terrorist, you let him float around for 4 days ? And he was perfectly within his rights to demand a lawyer. Why wasn't one provided to him by the US authorities ? It does seem he was on a 'no fly' list... but once you nail somebody, why isn't there a clear course of action that should be pursued ? Strange too that he was on 'no fly' list yet could fly out of the US without being questioned. The statement from the US interrogator to the thai authorities that "we don't care what happens to him, do whatever you like to him" is truly odd... this kid is clearly very bright academically (degree in neurobiology) and currently in medical school...it is not so uncommon for such students to seek something higher and have a 'hole in their hearts' as it were... who knows how 'brainwashed' he might be at this stage or what radical ideas he might or might not have, but being treated the way he was, he would surely lean towards becoming radical and anti US... not sure this might be the best way to tackle seemingly 'half baked' cases... I support full and thorough checks and investigations into travellers who could pose a security risk, but random aggressive attitudes towards one and all might not be the best way... dunno...

Get a plastic one, they're cheaper and run on batteries.

funny...:-)

I don't see why there is so much national fuzz around this story.

An unfaithful wife goes for a ride with another man. Her husband finds out and confronts his rival. This can happen (and it does happen) anywhere in the world, including Russia. As a matter of fact, a similar situation in Moscow, Sankt Petersburg or Vladivostok could have ended up much worse.

The scary lesson foreign tourists learn from this: do not sleep with someone else's spouse, even if you're in Thailand. Wow.

This is not about a Thai national and a Russian (or foreign) visitor. It's not a Phuket or Thailand issue. It's a story of two men and one unfaithful woman. What message will the Royal Police send if they give the worst possible hell to the husband: Thai man, beware, never confront the farangs who fool around with your wives?

I would not like to be in any of the two men's boots.

well said....my thoughts exactly...

Don't agree, most of the bar and gogo girls have a husband in the village and supporting him and the children, how are we suppose to know if she is married? They never wear a ring or something that state that she is married and if you ask her she will certainly deny it and say she's single.

then you date them or sleep with them at your risk... you seem to agree that most girls have husbands in the village (I am not so sure about that as most have been dumped by their men and are supporting their kids and/or parents), then why do you risk touching them ? paying them for sex when we pick them up from a bar (and saying we were not told they had husbands) does not clear us of any responsibility towards our actions... a bar or go go girl is in a commercial establishment - the 'relationship' or transaction is clearly defined by money... the russian's case is not about a bar or go go girl is it ? he went out with a girl that lived in his building... maybe he was thinking he does not want to support human trafficking and the sex trade and frequent bars or gogo joints...maybe he wanted a girl who was not in the 'sex for money' business... just that she mislead him over her relationship status... in the case of a bar there is a middleman or pimp (bar owner) that will support and protect you... dating a married woman in your building who has a gun toting husband - you're on your own...:-)

I don't see why there is so much national fuzz around this story.

An unfaithful wife goes for a ride with another man. Her husband finds out and confronts his rival. This can happen (and it does happen) anywhere in the world, including Russia. As a matter of fact, a similar situation in Moscow, Sankt Petersburg or Vladivostok could have ended up much worse.

The scary lesson foreign tourists learn from this: do not sleep with someone else's spouse, even if you're in Thailand. Wow.

This is not about a Thai national and a Russian (or foreign) visitor. It's not a Phuket or Thailand issue. It's a story of two men and one unfaithful woman. What message will the Royal Police send if they give the worst possible hell to the husband: Thai man, beware, never confront the farangs who fool around with your wives?

I would not like to be in any of the two men's boots.

well said....my thoughts exactly...

How come nobody is talking of the two timing wife in this case ? Apparently she told the russian that the man she lived with was her brother and not boyfreind/husband...surely she would have cooked up a story to protect herself from an angry husband when caught...the enraged thai husband pulls out a gun and threatens the man who went on a date with his wife... crimes of passion like these happen all over the world... carrying a gun and demonstrating your intent to use it is clearly a problem... the issue is what triggered the whole situation ? the 'image' of this country is tarnished less by an angry husband threatening a man who sleeps with his wfie and more by the danger of being duped by a married woman who can expose a foreigner to such a predicament by willing to go out with an unsuspecting man.... dunno...

The important thing is why woukd the pilots feel the need for a nap on a morning fliight after having had. Full night's rst in Bangkok ? Were they out partying in town the night before ? Also, it seems very bizarre that they had no fear of the danger to their own lives that they could hand over the plane to stewardesses... There has to be more to this story than we know... Extremely rash and stupid thing to do by any pilot... Something does not add up...

There's a milion stories about hotel owners and guests.

I spent 80% of my time for 10 years in and out of hotels all over Asia, finished that project about 10 years back.

Worst experience was a 5 star hotel In Pattaya, company booked 5 rooms for a meeting, 3 night stay. All booked about 5 or 6 weeks in advance on Agoda or similar (Agoda just an example).

After check in the duty manager came to my room and said that there was a mistake in the room rate when the rooms were booked and he wanted 400Baht more per room per day.

I told him to wait and I checked online, in fact the rate was cheaper than the rate we had already reveived weeks earlier. I refused to pay and got every excuse in the book how the extra money would be deducted from his salary.

One morning one of my colleagues was workling in his room and the room maid asked if she could clean the room, he agreed. He noticed that the maid took one of the unused white towels to finish cleaning the bathroom, to dry the floor.

An hour later the duty manager knocked on my door and said he wanted 200Baht reimbursement to replace the towel my colleague had ruined. I called my colleague and he was shocked and informed me about the maid using the towel. I refused to pay.

More hassles on check out so I called the hotel management company in Singapore, they apologised and told the cashier to drop the extra charges.

My assumption (repeat assumption) was that the duty manager was trying a scam to gain some extra s[ending power.

Never ever had anything like this before or again.

amazing story... goes to show the sloppiness and perhaps the pressure some of the hotel employees are under... once the room was prepaid via an OTA like Agoda and booking confirmed...it's a done deal...there's no avenue to say that the rate was wrong... this type of pressure to maximize revenue depending on wayward occupancy is a hotel industry malady... and the intense pressure the employees can be subjected to can result in bizarre behaviour from some of the less mature ones... if this was indeed a 5 star property then what you describe is a failure of leadership and appropriate training within the said hotel. The creative way of gettng back at you by trying to charge for a soiled towel says it all... the brand suffers as a result..and clearly you came away with a pretty poor taste in your mouth... I find it very odd that a duty manager would plead with a guest to pay more (or lose part of his salary) when the guest has prepaid for the room via a verifiable channel and has documented evidence and confirmation from the hotel... what kind of 5 star is this ?

yes but as Thaksin has major shares at Air Asia they will get some handouts.

Oh is that so? Please support your statement. You are aware that Asia aviation plc the Thai controlling company is a public company right?

As such, there is a legal obligation to disclose the identity of major shareholders. Did you bother looking at the list? Please tell me which one of the majority shareholders is Mr. Thaksin, or one of his companies. Here's the listing of the majority shareholders. Show me I am wrong, and tell me which one is controlled by Thaksin.

FIL Investment Management (Singapore) Ltd.

Templeton Asset Management Ltd.

Nomura Asset Management (Singapore) Ltd.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management International Ltd.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

FIL Investments International

FIL Investment Management (Hong Kong) Ltd.

SCB Asset Management Co. Ltd.

Degroof Gestion Institutionnelle Luxembourg SA

BTW, in 2012 the company had an IPO and the shares were sold to institutional investors and the public.

and you know all the details of who are the people behind and/or involved with FIL investments in 3 countries ? Any idea who templeton are ? The entry of air asia into thailand and how it unfolded during mr thaksin's premiership is known to everyone who was following the news then... and how nok air was stalled and undercut... I suppose that is the connection to this 'argument'... it may well be that all these companies listed above have no visible or invisible connection to mr thaksin...and all this is purely coincidental... in which case the argument or accusation is not valid...

who is air asia's local partner ? any guesses ? :-) the recent attack on nok air make sense now ?

Ay relation to the business rivalry between Air Aisa and Nok air ? Recall that when Mr T was PM, thai airways had put in an application to launch thailand's first budget airline (Nok Air)... Mr T realised the money making potential then of a budget alternative to flying and stalled Nok air's launch to quickly get into bed with Air Asia and launch air asia as the first budget airline here... Clever use of official powers to undercut a rival business house and get into business for yourself....anybody remember that ? What's the motivation to go after Nok Air this time ? :-)

As of 1 September 2012 it was illegal for a taxi to refuse a fare, but nothing has changed, the law is not even worth the paper it is written on despite all the propaganda at the time it was announced. My wife works on Sukhumvit way out towards Bang Na and no taxi will pick her up to bring her to our house because they have no clue that if they just get on the expressway at Soi 62 it only takes 15 minutes to get to Sathorn, so she drives and I take taxis. Living on Sathorn Road and having to go to the airport I find no problem to get a cab to take me for the meter fare (but I always pay more because they are going almost 50km with not that much chance of a return fare so 50 baht on top is reasonable - in Singapore you have to pay add-ons to go to/from the airport, add-ons for peak periods and after hours and more in other places, time we all got real and let these guys make a decent living). Conversely when trying to get a taxi to bring me from my office at Ratchaprasong to Sathorn they all refuse, I normally have to walk over to Langsuan and get a taxi there to avoid the greed of the taxis around Erawan area near my office. I took a photo of a taxi with his "fai wang" (little red sign saying he was available) after he refused me and told him I would report him to the police hot line, he got out of the car, berated me in some pretty nasty Thai profanity, threatened me and drove off. The staff of the hotel lobby I was standing at did nothing to assist and were next to useless (a 5 star hotel in the Ratchaprasong area where I have my office and spend oodles on noodles and more). So the consumer continues to have no rights in this lovely country unless you can buy them and even then the thugs control it. Taxis in Bangkok are becoming more and more like mafia thugs similar to their Phuket cousins, it will be a wonder if Thailand can maintain any kind of tourism popularity except for Chinese (who don't know any better). However, in their defence (The Taxis'), when I arrived in Thailand in 1991 the "flag fall" to start the meter was not much less than the current 35 baht, and the price per 200 meters (or whatever) hasn't much changed, yet the price of fuel has gone from 6.8 baht in those days to over 45 baht nowadays (as a comparison, I know they use gas mostly but don't know the price of gas in those days). So... cut them some slack, pay over the meter if you can because frankly if you were in London, Sydney, New York, or pretty much any other city you could never get a taxi from the airport to the city for under $10... Singapore, KL, Jakarta - also cannot - only Manila are the taxi prices about the same but there you end up in a dirty smelly old corolla or similar with bad airconditioning and taxi drivers who do not know the way around, but mostly at least they are polite. I travel frequently, in and out of the country on business at least weekly and sometimes twice in one week I am making my way back and forth from the airport, 90% of the taxis are in reasonable condition, drivers pretty much know where they are going and drive reasonably carefully (for taxi drivers - try Moscow if you want to be scared as hell, ripped off or mugged). Of the other 10% either the driver is new and doesn't know how to get to Sathorn, or the car is smelly without good air con or the driver appears to be over stimulated (if you know what I mean). Any cheap skate that pays only whats on the meter better avoid New York where the drivers expect to get at least 10% above it if not 20% and will give you heaps of crap if no tip offered. But to the point of the article, a taxi driver cursing a passenger and physically assaulting them should be banned from holding a license for life, definitely the crime committed is under penalised in Thailand, which is why in our last election some HiSo types were quite willing to go around slapping the faces of others knowing it would only end in a 500 baht fine... be careful Farangs, if you think getting into a fight and hitting someone will only get a small fine, its still a criminal offence even if the fine is small and that means instant deportation once you serve your sentence (eg pay the fine).

I empathise and agree with you... it is mafia behavoir...link it directly to the police involvement or inaction... and who can control the police here ? there's only one institution that can and has had to do that several times in the past... but that whole thing is another discussion.... like you said, beware and do not get into argumants with these thugs... as of late they are on a new 'high',,,

I've gotten in the habit of just getting in and sitting down before I state my destination. That works sometimes. Yesterday, for the first time, I found a cab that had the doors locked. The driver simply reached back to roll down the window before waving me off and driving away.

It's criminal.

They benefit from being licensed, but refuse their responsibilities for fair service.

Just another layer of corruption in the system.

absolutely true...this happened to me outside Siam Paragon couple weeks ago when I took the skytrain there and while returning home, chose to take a taxi because the queues at the train ticket window were too long...

criminal indeed... one taxi driver even screamed at me and gave me the middle finger when I challenged him to explain why he will not take us to Rama 3 area... the fact that I was with my teenage daughter did not deter him from behaving in a rogue fashion....scary thing to happen... some taxi drivers have no concern if the passengers have family with them.... can't imagine what some tourists would be facing while dealing with the wring cabbie...

This is the funniest part for me.

A much more telling point was that police found that the tide was in at 1 am, and if Berthelsen had been walking at the north end of the beach at that time, he would have been neck-deep in water

has the ring of a sherlock holmes thriller...:-)