Sriwijaya Air Delays Flight Because Of Smelly Fruit

A foul smell coming from a Sriwijaya Air airline cabin delayed an Indonesian flight after several passengers complained this past Monday, reports USA Today. These passengers were smelling the durian fruit, which, as many who have tried the fruit know, is quite pungent. Complaining passengers stated the smell hit them immediately once they boarded the flight.

Requests to remove the fruit from the cargo hold were coming from these passengers who said they would not fly with the durian fruit in the cargo hold, as Fortune cites. A bit of business information that skirts the knowledge of airline passengers is that in most cases, airlines transport various types of products without ever informing customers exactly what is in the hold. The reason these airlines often carry things such as the durian fruit in the cargo hold is to increase flight profitability. Typically these passengers would have zero say in what the flight will carry, unlike in this particular circumstance with the durian fruit.

The passengers aboard Sriwijaya Air found that their protests worked in their favor. At their requests, the airline asked passengers to get off the plane so that the employees could remove the durian fruit from the cargo hold. An hour later, the plane took to the air.

Sriwijaya Air was storing just over two tons of the durian fruit in the cargo hold for the flight from Bengkulu to Jakarta, cites USA Today. Retri Maya, Sriwijaya Air’s senior corporate communications manager, told The Jakarta Post that the airline did in fact have a right to carry the durian fruit, despite many believing it to be smelly. According to reports, passengers were nearly getting into physical altercations during their attempts to have the fruit removed from the cargo hold.

“It’s not illegal to carry durian in a flight as long as it is wrapped properly in accordance with flight regulations – carried inside the hold. Many airlines do this.”

Some readers may be wondering what a durian fruit is. The durian is actually considered by many to be the stinkiest fruit in the world. There are over 30 species and more than 100 varieties of the durian in Indonesia alone. The fruit can grow as large as 12 inches in length, and it is covered in thorns. Some claim there is some sort of sweet odor in the fruit, while others say it smells exactly like raw sewage.