A angry father says he was kicked off his flight for taking a seemingly innocent picture of his family.
Jimmy Mitchell was boarding a Jetstar flight from Sydney to Brisbane with his wife and children on Wednesday (3 April) - which is a pretty usual occurance for the family.
Excited for the journey ahead, the Aussie father-of-two took a minute to take a photo of his family as they prepared to embark onto the aeroplane.
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After taking the picture, Mitchell alleges that a member of staff called him an 'idiot', leading him to 'turn around in disbelief'.
In a TikTok video which has since gone viral, he said: "I turned around in disbelief ... I basically stormed over to her, and I was like ‘are you serious, what did you just call me?’."
He then claims that the on-the-ground employee told him that passengers are not permitted to use their mobile phones on the tarmac under any circumstances.
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"I was like ‘wait a minute, I didn’t know anything about this’," Mitchell claimed. "’My phone was on flight mode, what does it matter?’"
According to the TikToker, an announcement regarding this had been made prior to the alleged incident, but since he'd had his noise-cancelling headphones on at the time, he didn't hear it.
"I didn’t hear it. When I went to the gate, there were no notifications about it, no signage, nothing," he said. "What if I was deaf?"
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Jimmy went on to claim that he'd fought his case to the member of staff, who allegedly told him he was no longer permitted to board and he was made to wait inside the gate for a period of time.
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After a while, however, he was eventually allowed back onto the flight and was reunited with his family, he said in an update video.
While admitting that he may have overreacted, Jimmy says that he was taken aback by the employee's alleged outburst.
"All she had to do was say something constructive, get off your phone, you can’t have your phone out, I would have been like ‘OK, sorry’, (then) got on the plane, moved on with my life." he said.
"This is the single worst experience I’ve ever had flying in my life."
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Jetstar has since responded to Mitchell's claims and have said that the incident is being investigated.
In a statement to Tyla, Jetstar said: "All our customers and team members have the right to feel respected when flying with us or when at work and we’re looking into what took place in this instance.
"Phones are not allowed to be used whilst on the tarmac as this is an operational space and we remind customers of this via gate PA’s."
Featured Image Credit: TikTok/@themothfamily