By Donald Wood
There are many types of passengers you can encounter on a flight, but low-cost airline Thai Smile Airways is now selling seats to dolls called known as Look Thep, which translates to “Child God.”
According to the Bangkok Post, the dolls are part of a recent craze of people purchasing baby-sized figures and going through a ceremony where they believe the spirit of an angel is transplanted into the doll. Once the spirit of the angel is believed to be inside the figures, owners dress the dolls in clothes and jewelry and treat them as if they were their real children.
Thai Smile Airways—a subsidiary of Thai Airways—announced the changes via a bulletin issued to the company’s cabin crew and flight attendants. Passengers traveling with the Look Thep will be separated into two different categories; those who purchase additional seats for the dolls and those who do not.
For those who purchase a ticket for their doll or multiple dolls, the owners must be in the window seats, snacks and drinks will be served to the figure and they must have their seatbelts fastened during take-off and landing.
On the other hand, passengers who do not purchase an extra seat will have their dolls registered as carry-on baggage, documented by the flight crew and owners will not be permitted to sit in exit seats or those seats reserved for special needs passengers.
Flight crews for Thai Smile Airways have been instructed to treat the dolls as if they were real children, instead of stuffing them into overhead storage as they had done in the past before passengers began complaining.
One concern raised by local police, though, is that drug smugglers could begin using the Look Thep dolls as a way to get illegal substances through airport security. Media in Thailand have already reported one of the dolls was discovered at Chiang Mai Airport containing methamphetamine.
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