A powerful last-minute drink before boarding

It is a familiar experience to most travellers – arriving at the security checkpoint and realising you did not empty your bottle of coke or water. Two or three big gulps and you can throw away the bottle before entering the checkpoint. A Chinese traveller did the same with the cognac she was not allowed to take on her flight.

Officers told the woman that she could not take the bottle, which she had bought in the U.S., onto the plane in her hand luggage as it was over 100 ml. The women decided to empty the full content of the expensive Rémy Martin XO Excellence on the spot. Shortly after that, she was barred from her flight from Beijing to Wenzhou. She was so intoxicated that she was found rolling on the floor and acting erratically at a boarding gate at Beijing Capital International Airport.

The woman was put in a wheelchair to sleep. When she woke a few hours later – sobered – she was taken home by her family.

Image by Rémy Martin