By Mohamed Attia
A United Airlines flight heading from Houston to Amsterdam was diverted to Chicago after an unruly business class passenger interrupted the flight, reportedly because his first meal choice was unavailable.
The accident occurred two hours after the plane took off in Houston, as it was in the airspace of Chicago, Illinois.
The flight took off at 4.20pm local time in Houston on Sunday, and was in Chicago airspace two hours into the flight. Flight tracking website Flightradar24 showed that the plane circled Chicago’s O’Hare airport as it had to use up fuel, known as dumping fuel, or it would have been too heavy to land.
Aviation insider XJonNYC posted internal United communications on Twitter that reported a “disruptive [passenger] on board” and a threat level of one, the lowest level of threat. In another tweet, he reported that the passenger seemed to be enraged over meal choice.
According to Flightrader24, the flight ended up landing just over three hours after its scheduled arrival, touching down at about 12.30pm local time in Amsterdam. The typical total flight time for the trip is nine hours and 30 minutes.
While it is unclear exactly what meal the unruly passenger had gotten upset over, business class passengers on United are typically offered a full three-course meal in addition to more food throughout the flight.
The airline has faced criticism that its in-flight meals had failed to return to pre-pandemic norms and it announced last year it was upgrading its business class fare.
The International Air Transport Association reported earlier this year that unruly passenger incidents increased 47% in 2022 compared with the year before, with an incident occurring once every 568 flights.
