A Chinese man on board China Southern flight CZ814 from Hefei to Guangzhou was arrested and spent five days in a holding cell for his behaviour earlier this week.

Chinese media outlets reported that the passenger, surnamed Xia, took the liberty to seat himself in the business class cabin despite purchasing only an economy class ticket.

According to The Nanfang Insider, he proceeded to take his shoes off and put them in the seat in front of him, ignoring requests from the flight attendants to remove them.

He then made a further nuisance of himself by going to the toilet and asking for hot water while the plane was taking off. Things got to a head when he shouted at a female attendant who had asked him politely to sit down, even grabbing her arm in a rough manner and leaving bruises on it.

Xia was detained by police when the plane landed on Dec 16.

This comes after a series of ugly on-board incidents involving Chinese tourists, which prompted the China National Tourism Administration to urge travel agencies "regulate" the behaviour of Chinese tourists.

The first case on Dec 11 involved four Chinese travellers splashing hot water on an AirAsia flight attendant to express unhappiness at their seating arrangements, and was swiftly followed by reports on Dec 12 of how a man deployed the emergency slide to disembark quicker from a China Eastern flight.

Then, on Dec 14, a first-time flier opened the plane's emergency exit as the plane was about to take-off in order to "get some air", while the most recent case saw four women get into a violent tussle over a crying baby during an Air China flight on Dec 18.