The Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Monday said a show cause notice has been issued to Air India about two incidents of misbehaviour by passengers on a December 6 flight from Paris to New Delhi, PTI reported.
The civil aviation regulator said that a drunk passenger was caught smoking in the lavatory, while another passenger allegedly urinated on a vacant seat and blanket of a female passenger when she had gone to use the restroom.
“Air India did not report the incident until the DGCA [Directorate General of Civil Aviation] sought the incident report from them on January 5, 2023,” the aviation regulator said in the notice, according to PTI. “After perusal of the reply submitted by Air India through email dated January 6, 2023, prima facie it emerges that provisions related to the handling of an unruly passenger...have not been complied with.”
The airline’s response in the case has been “lackadaisical and delayed”, the show cause notice added.
It is mandatory for airlines to inform the aviation regulator of any incident of unruly passengers or passenger misconduct during within 12 hours of the landing of the flight, reported PTI.
The airlines are also required to set up a three-member internal committee, comprising of a retired district and session judge as chairman, a representative from a different airline and a representative from a passengers association or consumer association or retired officer of Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum.
This committee has the powers to impose a flying ban on unruly passengers within 30 days. In some cases, the ban can be lifelong.
In Monday’s notice, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has asked the accountable manager of Air India why action should not be taken against the airlines for dereliction of their regulatory obligations.
“However, to follow the principles of natural justice, they have been given two weeks time to submit their reply to DGCA and based on that further action will be taken,” the aviation regulator said, according to PTI.
Urination incident on Air India flight
On November 6, a man had urinated on a female passenger on an Air India flight from New York to Delhi on November 26.
According to the first information report filed by the Delhi Police, the man on the New York to Delhi flight walked to the woman’s seat in the business class section in a drunken state, unzipped his pants and urinated on her.
The FIR stated that after the incident, the Air India crew brought the accused person, identified as Shankar Mishra, to the woman’s seat and forced her to negotiate with him. The woman in a letter to Tata Group Chairperson Natarajan Chandrasekaran accused the crew of being “deeply unprofessional” while dealing with a “very traumatic situation”.
On Sunday, Tata Group Chairperson N Chandrasekaran had said that Air India should have responded in a more swift manner to the incident. “We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should have been,” he had said.
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