And Here's The Famed MacNeils!

David MacNeil Sr. lives with his family in Mabou, Cape Breton, a hamlet of a thousand people. Evidently he is considered the wealthiest resident in town. They live very well, in a newly built home on the side of a mountain. Many of the people who live in Mabou are obligated to their neighbour, for they have employment through him.  He is president of an Ontario mining company.

And Mr. MacNeil (Sr.) is reputed to fly back and forth to Ontario every few weeks, to look after business. As a frequent flyer he is well aware, therefore, of airline rules and etiquette. Despite which, the airline on which he and his family flew to a sunny destination for a family holiday is contemplating billing them the $50,000 it cost them to halt the flight to the Dominican Republic and put up all the plane passengers and crew in a hotel overnight in Bermuda.

Which is also where, as it happened, David MacNeil Sr., 54, his 52-year-old wife Darlene and heir 22-year-old son David were arrested for causing mayhem on a Sunwing flight. There may, as a consequence, be a lawsuit in the offing. The three McNeils are accused of smoking on the flight; a younger member of the family behaved herself. While her parents and her older brother engaged in shouting profanities at the air crew.

And monopolizing the plane bathroom so other passengers were inconvenienced. Other passengers were also rather alarmed at the loud, abusive behaviour of this MacNeil family of boors who felt that their airline reservations entitled them to behave in any manner they chose to. There are times when infants and very young children behave abominably in public and when they do so on a flight, it is beyond irritating for other passengers.

All the more so pungently annoying when mature adults engage in such shenanigans. Some wag in the town has defined Mabou's distinctive quality as one which not only has a famed Celtic pop band, but also that "Mabou is best known for the nicotine-addicted MacNeil family that caused a flight destined to the Dominican Republic to make an emergency overnight landing in Bermuda..."

And it goes on to elucidate town feelings which are usually kept close to their collective bosom: "This family has brought great shame to Nova Scotia and this community as their actions are not like those of this area." And, said one of the family's neighbours to a news enquiry: "It's none of my business, but they have all friends and family and neighbours around here, so I have no comment on it."

MacNeil the elder pleaded guilty in Bermuda to disorderly conduct, using abusive and offensive language. Madam MacNeil pleaded guilty to deliberately choosing not to heed a lawful order by a flight attendant. The 170 other passengers on the flight must have had some very colourful thoughts on the disruption to their anticipated vacation, having lost a day of it to the actions of a doltish family.