"I'm a terrorist": Man's ill-advised joke at Prague Airport costs his family their holiday

At Prague Airport, a man jokingly claimed to be a terrorist — and those words instantly triggered serious consequences: the airline refused to let him board for safety reasons, and his young children lost their holiday along with him.

The man had been travelling alone with his children for a family getaway, so the airline's decision effectively ended the trip for all of them. In the end, the passenger and his children were calmly escorted out of the terminal by police.

The man later insisted he had only meant it as a joke. However, according to the Foreign Police, security protocols respond to such statements instantly and without exception. "A patrol from the local Foreign Police inspectorate was immediately dispatched to the scene, followed by a bomb disposal team, who thoroughly searched the man and his belongings — nothing dangerous was found," said Foreign Police spokesman Josef Urban.

Police are urging passengers to take note: words like "bomb," "terrorist," "explosives," or "weapon" spoken inside an airport automatically trigger security procedures. Neither police officers nor airport security staff are permitted — or able — to judge whether such a remark was meant as a joke, said out of frustration, or seriously.

"Any such statement leads to a call-out for the bomb squad, flight delays, and, as a rule, the immediate cancellation of the trip at the passenger's own expense. Think about that before you travel. Irresponsible behaviour doesn't just ruin the experience for you — it ruins it for your loved ones too," the police spokesman stressed.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz