A group of Quebec influencers and reality show stars could be facing thousands of dollars in fines after videos surfaced showing them partying without masks on board a Sunwing flight from Montreal to Cancun.
Images from the Dec. 30 flight showed passengers ignoring public health measures, jumping and dancing in the aisle, vaping and openly passing around a bottle of hard liquor on the plane. In one video, a person could be seen crowd-surfing while the plane was in the air.
The federal government released a statement Tuesday, saying the departments of Transport, Public Safety and Health have all launched investigations into the incident.
There could be fines of up to $5,000 from Transport Canada for each offence on board, it said.
Additional fines and even jail time could follow if passengers were found to be endangering others, or if they provide falsified information upon their return to Canada.
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First passengers return to Montreal after cancelled flight
The group was scheduled to return to Montreal Wednesday. Sunwing said it reached out to the organizers with terms and conditions for them to board their return flight.
"Unfortunately, the group did not accept all of the terms," it said in a statement to CBC News.
Awad, the organizer of the event, released a statement Thursday, saying he agreed to most of Sunwing's terms, including paying out-of-pocket for security staff to be present on the plane.
"I assured them every measure would be followed, but we couldn't conclude an agreement because Sunwing refused to provide meals to the group for a [five-hour] flight," he wrote.
Sunwing then cancelled the return flight. Air Transat and Air Canada followed suit, releasing statements saying that the implicated passengers would be denied boarding on their flights.
However, Air Canada and Air Transat did not have access to the passenger manifest from Sunwing, Radio-Canada learned.
About 15 of the passengers managed to return to Montreal Wednesday night. They were detained by border services officers for about two hours before being released.
Awad wrote that the airline companies were refusing them service "based on presumptions" and that his company is "working tirelessly to get everyone back home safely as quickly as we can."
Danger to plane, crew
Aviation experts say the behaviour on the plane was not only violating pandemic public health measures, but risked the safety and security of those onboard.
Mehran Ebrahimi, who heads an aerospace industry research unit at the University of Quebec at Montreal, pointed to the vaping on board as an example.
"That could set off the fire alarms, which could be very dangerous. It would signal a fire aboard, and the captain wouldn't know where it was from," he explained.
"These people think because they paid, because they're pseudo-influencers, they think they can do whatever they want," Ebrahimi said.
