A man who joked the case he was carrying contained a machine gun was marched off a Freedom Air flight at Hamilton Airport yesterday.
Inside the case was a trumpet.
The remark saw him removed from the flight bound for Sydney, banned from the airline for five years, and facing the prospect of criminal charges.
The incident comes days after a Somali-born woman tried to hijack a plane flying to Christchurch, which Hamilton Airport security said had heightened their state of alert for security breaches.
As the man, believed to be a school teacher, boarded the 7.25am flight yesterday he was asked by the woman checking boarding passes what was in the case he was carrying.
"Apparently he turned round to her and said `It's a machine gun'," Aviation Security officer Doug Norton said.
Mr Norton said the remark was taken seriously by staff "especially after what happened last Friday".
"When you say stupid things like that, there's just absolutely no leeway. It's been publicised, people know about it; there's no excuse."
The man, who was a New Zealander but not from Hamilton, took his seat on the plane with his partner, Mr Norton said.
The woman he made the comment to alerted airport security and an officer boarded the flight and ordered the man off. His partner voluntarily left the plane with him.
Passenger Rachel Turney was near the man when he was told to get off the plane.
"He was quite obliging and didn't cause a fuss," Ms Turney said.
"Obviously he was just being a bit of an idiot. It never felt at all like he was a terrorist or anything."
But Australian Garth Porter, also on the plane, believed the man was actually in possession of a gun that had not been detected by security. Mr Porter said in an email to the Waikato Times that passengers were not told what had happened and "the whole incident was treated as though it never happened by airline staff".
Mr Norton said the man would be banned from flying with Freedom Air for five years and other airlines had the right to refuse him service as well.
He was spoken to by police at the airport and the Civil Aviation Authority may prosecute.
Under the Civil Aviation Act 1990, penalties for such an incident include a fine of up to $10,000 or 12 months' imprisonment.
In September last year a Hamilton woman, also a school teacher, was removed from a Freedom Air flight to Sydney after she joked she was carrying a knife and gun.
Airport chief executive Chris Doak said the removal of the man from yesterday's flight was the normal response to passengers who made threatening comments.
"While there's a heightened awareness of these issues nationwide, that's what I would have expected to have happened even before the recent incident in Christchurch," Mr Doak said.
"Obviously we take security really seriously. It's very important that the travelling public understand that airport and airline security is a very serious matter."
Prime Minister Helen Clark said it was likely tighter security would be introduced on smaller domestic flights following last week's failed hijacking attempt.
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