Vietnam’s central customs agency has asked its relevant units to handle a case in which a customs official at Noi Bai International Airport has been accused of having bad-mannered treatment toward passengers, one of whom released a relevant post on social media.

The General Department of Customs on Thursday said it has directed its functional units to verify and handle the incident that happened at the airport in Hanoi on January 29, involving a deputy head of a customs team in charge of outbound baggage and a group of passengers.

The agency has ordered its relevant functional units to set up an inspection team to deal with the case to ensure discipline among customs officers and employees, Nguoi Lao Dong (Laborer) newspaper reported, citing a representative of the department.  

The direction was made as the agency received a report from the Hanoi Customs Department after the case was shared on social media.

The central customs agency said that it will notify mass media of the results of verification and handling of the case when they are available.

Earlier, in a post on Facebook and her talks to the press, N.T.T. expressed her frustration about the improper behavior of the aforementioned customs officer, Nguyen Phuc Hai, at the airport.

At 0:00 that day, her family carried out procedures at the airport for a flight to Japan and during the process, her two young children were taken by her mother to a toilet and when they returned to the check-out area, they were yelled at by Hai, who even expelled them from the area, T. narrated on her Facebook page.

Discontent with Hai’s rude behavior, T. made an opposition response to him but he said that he did not need to be polite because he was not an airport employee, the woman reported.

T. then made a Facebook post about what was happening to her and her relatives. 

After boarding the plane, T. was requested by a customs staff three times that she and her two children get off the plane with their hand luggage for a re-check.

However, a flight attendant did not let the customs staff take T. and her children off the plane because the plane was about to take off, T. narrated. 

At that time, Hai entered the plane and asked T. made a written commitment to delete her post and not to use the images she had recorded. 

“Since the incident, the customs side has not released any response or apology to me. The request by the customs official and his getting on board right before the plane take-off can be evidenced by witnesses,” Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper quoted T. as saying.

Do Manh Hung, head of the airport customs office, told Tien Phong that the incident was between Hai and T. only, not relating to the working procedures of the airport customs at all.

In his report to the office, Hai said that while he was at the airport counter as T. that day to ask for flight information for his relatives, he found two children running from the toilet area straight into the procedure counter area without standing in line.

When Hai asked the children to queue up, T. appeared and the two sides got into a dispute, Hung said, citing Hai’s report.

Although the incident occurred outside the customs area, the office has asked Hai to correct his manner while dealing with passengers and draw experience from this problem, Hung added.

Like us on Facebook or  follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!