Kinesisk kultur og flyging

With Flight Delays in China, a Rise in Air Rage

SHANGHAI (NYT) - Airline crews and ground staff are being assaulted, passengers have stormed the runway of a major international airport and the door of a plane's emergency exit was recently yanked open.

In China, airline passengers are resorting to extreme measures to protest flight delays as the country's air corridors become congested with millions of new fliers each year, a result of the quick rise of the middle class and of increasingly inexpensive air tickets.

With airlines struggling to keep flights in China on schedule, there have been dozens of episodes of so-called air rage involving travelers on domestic and international flights.

"When flights get delayed, passengers make a lot of trouble," said Wang Zhenghua, founder and chairman of the budget carrier Spring Airlines, which is based in Shanghai. "Sometimes they even beat our staff."

"Airlines are actually the weaker party," he continued. "With the government calling for a 'harmonious society,"' he said, referring to a political slogan of President Hu Jintao, "the only thing we can do is to give them compensation to calm them down."

With manufacturers predicting that a new plane will take to China's skies every other day for the next two decades, industry officials say that congestion will only get worse. And that will translate to more delays.