Airplane etiquette isn’t complicated. Don’t take up more space than you need, don’t be obnoxiously loud—and maybe don’t ruin an entire cabin’s flight experience. Unfortunately, not everyone got that memo.
The one thing about Reddit is that it’s 100% anonymous. And when you’re posting anonymously, there’s really no way to tell if you’re telling the truth or not. So you could post the most interesting story ever, but no one can ever tell if it really happened. And in the case of having petty revenge on another passenger – an obnoxious one at that – the best we can do is hope.
Such is the case of this story. And if it is true, it’s a pretty unforgettable one.
It’s titled “I got an obnoxious passenger fired” and was written by a Reddit user that we’re going to call “Osakamutha,” because the real Reddit handle they used has a four-letter word in it (hint: one that would go right after “mutha”) and we try to not go beyond a PG rating here because we never know who is reading at work, with their kid nearby, etc.
This is just a Reader’s Digest-style condensed version – you can read the whole thing here. Heads up that it has adult language.
A Flight That Started Like Any Other
Anyway, Osakamutha said they’re South African, and they had taken their wife, who was Japanese, to meet their parents and have a honeymoon in South Africa.
Osakamutha was on the first of three flights back to Japan, traveling from Johannesburg to Qatar. After boarding and settling in, they noticed something odd—several nearby passengers were all wearing the same t-shirts, apparently from a pharmaceutical company.
Not long after, they realized the woman and two men seated behind them were part of that same group.
The woman—quickly nicknamed “Brandy”—was already loud, chatty, and a bit obnoxious. Still, as a nervous flyer, Osakamutha was more focused on takeoff than anything else. Earbuds in, music on, problem (temporarily) ignored.
For about five minutes.
Things Start To Spiral Mid-Flight
As soon as the seatbelt sign turned off, Brandy started ordering brandy and cokes—for herself and her coworkers. With each drink, her volume went up a notch. By drink six, she had moved on to loudly discussing relationships, including her very strong opinions about interracial ones.
At that point, half the cabin could hear her. Even Osakamutha could still make out what she was saying—even through loud music blasting in their ears.
Eventually, a woman seated a few rows away had enough and politely asked Brandy to quiet down so she could sleep.
Brandy’s response?
“This isn’t a nighttime flight. Haven’t you heard of earplugs?”
And then she went right back to talking.
The entire vibe of the cabin shifted. Passengers who heard the exchange started making eye contact with each other—the universal signal of well, this is about to get interesting.
About 20 minutes later, a flight attendant stepped in and asked Brandy to lower her voice. She agreed (begrudgingly), ordered another round, and quieted down.
For about 30 minutes.
Then she was right back at full volume.
Next up: another passenger—a Chinese woman—approached and asked Brandy to be quieter because her child kept waking up.
Brandy responded by attempting to speak Chinese. Badly. Repeatedly. Loudly. Until the woman, understandably frustrated, gave up and went back to her seat.
(Osakamutha, who actually had lived in China for five years and spoke Mandarin, understood exactly what Brandy was trying to say. It didn’t help.)
At this point, the flight attendants had clearly had enough and shut down the cabin bar entirely—much to Osakamutha’s disappointment, as they had been hoping for a couple of whiskeys.
But Brandy wasn’t done.
A short while later, Osakamutha heard the unmistakable sounds of a bottle opening. Brandy had broken out her duty-free stash and kept right on going. Volume: rising again.
Up until then, Osakamutha had been focused on the chaos behind them and hadn’t paid much attention to their wife, assuming she was asleep.
She wasn’t.
She pulled out an earbud, tried to look back, and then turned toward Osakamutha with a look that said everything: pure frustration.
That was it.
The Cabin Finally Snaps
Osakamutha stood up.
Osakamutha said they’re not usually the kind of person to make a scene—but this had gone far enough. Loud enough for much of the cabin to hear, they asked:
“Excuse me everyone—by show of hands, who here would like these people to be quiet?”
About 30 hands went up.
They turned to Brandy, pointed, and made it very clear: time to stop.
Osakamutha sat back down to actual applause. Their wife was stunned—but also relieved—and gave them a hug. Shortly after, a flight attendant quietly delivered a “coke”… along with a couple of mini bottles of whiskey tucked in.
Not long after that, Brandy and her group finally passed out.
Peace at last.
For a while.
As the plane began its descent, Brandy woke up and decided to start aggressively jabbing the entertainment screen attached to the back of Osakamutha’s seat—hard enough to shake it.
Having experience working with kids, Osakamutha recognized the move immediately: classic attention-seeking behavior.
They ignored it.
After landing, as passengers stood up to deplane, Brandy switched tactics and began loudly insulting Osakamutha—comments about their weight, their marriage, the whole high-school-bully starter pack.
Osakamutha just smiled, nodded… and walked off the plane.
They and their wife found a quiet café to decompress before their next flight to Malaysia.
And then—of course—there she was again.
Brandy. Same gate. Same flight.
But It Didn’t End There
This time, Osakamutha took a different approach.
They sat next to another passenger in the same company t-shirt and casually asked about Brandy, pretending she looked familiar. Got her name. Thanked him. Moved on.
Then they logged into airport Wi-Fi, found the company’s website and Facebook page, and sent a detailed account of everything that had happened.
The next two flights were completely uneventful.
Two weeks later, Osakamutha got a reply—from the company’s CEO.
He asked for a call. Apologized profusely. And then explained:
By the time Brandy landed in Malaysia, the company had already seen the report. Brandy’s return flight was changed—and she was terminated upon arrival back in Johannesburg.
That night, Osakamutha picked up a bottle of brandy and coke to share with their wife.
This time, much more peacefully.
Did It Really Happen?
The post got over 12,000 upvotes. A few hundred of the comments had to do with the reasons why people applaud on planes (from landing to people exiting the head after joining the Mile High Club), but even beyond those, the response was, of course, overwhelmingly positive.
Of course, more than a few people wanted to know if the event actually happened, considering:
- The flight attendants serving that much alcohol
- The applause after confronting her
- The CEO firing someone based on a complaint—and then following up
A lot of people suggested it was AI. I don’t think so—the original had plenty of typos and grammatical errors. But Osakamutha swore it really happened and even included screenshots (again, NSFW due to adult language) of their exchange with the CEO of the pharmaceutical company.
Whether it’s true or not… you have to admit—it’s a pretty satisfying outcome.
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