A young Vietnamese student has been subject to a financial penalty for clandestinely smoking on a domestic plane, presumably unaware of a relevant flight regulation.

A flight attendant found a female passenger named P.L.V., the occupant of the 6A seat, smoking in the aircraft lavatory on March 19.

The customer traveled on the Vietjet flight VJ696 on the route between Hai Phong City, in northern Vietnam, and Lam Dong Province, in the country’s Central Highlands.

The information was provided on Tuesday by a representative from Vietnam’s Southern Airports Authority, one of the three governmental bodies managing civil aviation in northern, central and southern Vietnam.

The authority said that the passenger is a 17-year-old high school student in Lam Dong.

She claimed to have been unaware of the no-smoking rule since that was her first-time flight.

The student was fined VND2 million (US$88) for the misstep, but had not paid the money up until Tuesday.

A Vietnamese law holds that a financially penalized violator must pay the fine within ten days since the punitive decision is made.

It is a regulation in Vietnam’s aviation that smoking cigarettes, even electronic ones, is banned on all inbound and outbound flights.

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