On June 28, Hotimah BT Liman Mujali, an Indonesian transit passenger flying through Hong Kong, was fined HK$500 after being arrested the previous day at the airport. In March, a Vietnamese transit passenger, Nguyen Thanh Tu, was jailed for six days after security stopped him at the airport.
Their crime? The theft of life jackets from their aircraft.
Hotimah, a 28-year-old domestic helper, and Nguyen, 27, a construction worker, had each stolen a life jacket on board their Cathay Pacific flights.
They subsequently pleaded guilty in Tsuen Wan Court to theft. In both cases, airport security discovered the vests in the passengers' bags as they were transiting through Hong Kong. Nguyen told police he had stolen the vest 'for his own use'.
Hotimah and Nguyen, it appears, are not alone.
Cathay Pacific Airways says about 100 life vests go missing per month from its planes. There was evidence or suspicion of theft in some cases, and the airline reported two or three cases to the police each month, the airline's corporate communications manager, Elin Wong, said. As for the remainder, the airline believed they were illegally removed, but it was impossible to confirm that.