(CFP)

Passengers aboard a Chinese civil aviation flight were frozen in panic when three of the aircraft's emergency exits were found to have been unexpectedly opened just before they were to take off on January 10.

According to later media reports, the China Eastern Airlines flight MU2036 bound to Beijing was scheduled to depart from Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan Province at 8:45 p.m. on January 9, but it was delayed by continuing snow until the early morning of the next day.

After passengers finished boarding the aircraft at 1:40 a.m. on January 10, they had to then wait for ice on the plane to be cleared, with one elderly woman feeling uncomfortable owing to hours of waiting. A dispute soon followed between passengers and the cabin crew after the co-pilot's explanation failed to appease the crowd.

When the flight was ready to take off, almost seven hours behind schedule, three emergency doors were found to have been opened, forcing the pilot to turn off the engines and drive the plane back to the gate. Later, Kunming police detained two passengers, a man and a woman, and kept them in custody for 15 days for their role in the incident.

Unfortunately, the incident in Kunming was not isolated. It occurred only a short while after a middle-aged man, on board a Xiamen Air flight from Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province to Chengdu in southwest China's Sichuan Province, sparked a safety scare by yanking open an emergency exit just before the plane was due to take off to "get some fresh air" in December 2014.

In response, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is considering putting black marks on the names of unruly airline passengers and punishing those who behave in a manner threatening safety, China News Service reported on January 15.

Diao Weimin, a professor at the Beijing-based Civil Aviation Management Institute of China, said that those who opened emergency doors could be accused of disturbing public order and harming public safety.

"Disputes on a delayed flight could be solved calmly after the plane lands," Diao said, calling on passengers to safeguard their rights rationally.

Holding your temper

Experts believe some passengers' boorish behavior is related to their indifference toward airline safety.

In recent years, the number of passengers taking airplanes has seen a sharp rise in China. According to the CAAC, Chinese people made more than 353 million flights in 2013 and the number is estimated to have exceeded 400 million in 2014.

"Traveling by air used to be a luxury," said Linda Li, who works for a travel agency in Sichuan. "But an increasing number of people on lower incomes and with little education can now easily afford it. Unlike seasoned travelers, they know little about airline safety."

In a widely reported scandal, four Chinese passengers grabbed headlines late last year for causing chaos on a China-bound AirAsia flight, forcing the aircraft to return to its departing airport in Thailand.

The incident occurred on December 11, 2014, when a couple on AirAsia flight FD9101 bound for Nanjing in east China had a spat with the flight crew, according to Zhang Xiao, a TV host who broke the story on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging service in China.

The couple, who were not seated together, demanded to switch seats so they could sit together when they boarded the plane. They then requested hot water when the plane was climbing, which was chargeable and served only after the plane reached cruising altitude, according to a report by a local TV network based in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, citing a passenger surnamed Wu.

The man, already annoyed by the delay, had another fight with the flight attendant over payment for the hot water, Wu said.