An airline in Japan on Saturday removed a male passenger who refused to wear a face mask from a domestic flight, airline officials said Monday, in the latest case in which a flight operator refused service to a passenger due to fears over the novel coronavirus.
A subsidiary of Japan Airlines Co. said it forced the passenger to disembark from the flight before it took off on Saturday afternoon in northern Japan because he refused requests by the flight crew to put on a mask and would not say why.
"We decided that (the man's) actions ended up disrupting order on the plane," an official of Hokkaido Air System Co. said. "If there was an explanation, we would have made adjustments for him to take the flight without a mask, such as reserving other seats for him."