By Matt Morrisson
A Cape Town businessman was thrown off a Nationwide Airlines flight last weekend after a row over his right to read a pornographic magazine on the plane.
AC Hoffman, a developer in the tobacco industry, says he was minding his own business reading Loslyf, an Afrikaans hard-core magazine.
Hoffman was quoted on Tuesday in an Afrikaans paper as saying: "Nowhere on my ticket does it say that this magazine may not be read on the aircraft... this will not be the end of the matter."
He was making a weekly business flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town when he picked up a copy of Loslyf. A flight attendant noticed him with the magazine when boarding, and told him to put it away.
When Hoffman refused to put the magazine down, the attendant had the captain repeat the request over the intercom. According to Hoffman, the attendant took the magazine away from him, and soon returned with it, throwing it into his lap.
According to the report Hoffman said he had told her she was "f***ing rude", at which point the aircraft, in mid-taxi, returned to the terminal to have him taken off the plane.
"She obviously does not know the difference between f***ing and f**k you, because she claimed I was swearing at her," said Hoffman.
Roger Whittle, executive manager of operations for Nationwide, on Tuesday said that it was Hoffman's unruly behaviour, not his magazine, that got him thrown off the plane.
"Mr Hoffman was verbally offensive to our staff," said Whittle. "He was asked to put the material away and stop, but he continued. We cannot take off with a passenger whose behaviour is that disruptive, so he had to be removed from the plane.
"Some things are just common sense - it is not a social norm to read that type of magazine with other passengers in the vicinity," he added.
Eugene Goddard, editor of Loslyf, said that he was grateful to Hoffman, and wanted to reward him for his readership with a year's free subscription.
"We regret that this happened to him. For God's sake, it's nudity - it's not like he took a bazooka on the plane."
The flight attendant could not be reached for comment.