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Keep your amateur stand-up routine for open mic night. You might bomb, but at least it’s free.
Dr. Manuel Alvarado, a 60-year-old Venezuelan, decided to try his best comedy routine at Miami International Airport and now has to pay $89,000.
On October 22, Alvarado was joking around with a gate agent and said that he had C-4 explosives in his luggage. The gate agent did not take it as a joke.
Probably because a) that’s not actually that funny; b) not joking about bombs in an airport is the number one rule of airports.
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The incident lead to parts of MIA being shut down for several hours that day. Five separate airlines ended up having to cancel flights.
A Miami-Dade Police bomb squad was also deployed to search through the doctor’s luggage and, of course, found nothing.
In exchange for not having formal charges filed, Alvarado’s attorney worked out a deal. He’ll pay up almost $84,000 to the airlines, with the rest of the $89,000 fine going to the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Alvarado also issued a formal written apology.
Please learn from Alvarado’s mistakes: keep your dumb airport bits to airline food and how your arms are so tired.
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