Air India on Wednesday said it has imposed a 30-day travel ban on a man who allegedly urinated on his female co-passenger in a drunken state onboard a flight from New York to Delhi on 26 November and instituted an internal probe to find if there were lapses in handling the situation by the crew.
Meanwhile, Delhi Police said it has registered an FIR, based on the complaint by the victim to Air India, and formed several teams to nab the accused.
While the identity of the accused has not been disclosed by either the airline or the police, sources said he is in his 50s and a resident of Mumbai.
A senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official said the regulator is “seeking a report from the airline and shall take action against those found negligent” in handling the incident.
In a shocking incident, an inebriated man allegedly urinated on his female co-passenger, a senior citizen in her seventies, in the business class of an Air India New York-Delhi flight on 26 November last year.
An Air India spokesperson said the airline has taken a “very serious view of the incident, where a passenger behaved in an unacceptable and undignified manner on the New York-Delhi flight that caused extreme distress to a fellow passenger.”
A police complaint has already been lodged and Air India is committed to assisting the law enforcement agencies as well as regulatory authorities, the spokesperson said in a statement.
“As a first step, Air India has banned the passenger for 30 days, the maximum it is permitted to unilaterally do so, and reported the matter to the DGCA for further action,” it added.
However, Air India declined to provide details about when the flying ban was imposed.
Under the Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) issued by DGCA in 2017, regarding the handling of unruly passengers, an airline has the power to ban an individual from flying for a lifetime.
The airline said, “we have also constituted an internal committee to probe lapses on part of Air India’s crew and address the deficiencies that delayed quick redressal of the situation.”
As per DGCA sources, an airline is bound to report any incident to the aviation regulator immediately but the same was not apparently followed with respect to the November 26 incident.
According to reports, the complainant had also written to Air India group chairman N Chandrasekaran stating that the drunk co-passenger had urinated on her and exposed himself.
Based on the complaint given by the victim to Air India, Delhi Police has registered a case under sections 294 (obscene act in any public place), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 510 (misconduct in public by a drunken person) of the Indian Penal Code and other relevant section of Aircraft rule, a senior police officer said.
“We have formed multiple teams to keep a track of the accused passenger and he will be arrested soon,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Commission for Women has written to the Air India Limited chairman to intervene in the matter. It said the action violated the woman’s right to live a life of dignity and safety.
The airline also said it is in regular contact with the aggrieved passenger and her family during the investigation and reporting process.
Air India sources on Wednesday claimed that the aggrieved passenger did not want to lodge a complaint and settled the matter on the flight itself after accepting the apologies and monetary compensation from the offending passenger.
They also claimed that there was no dereliction of duty by the crew, who were supportive of the aggrieved passenger and seated her on an alternate business class seat reserved for the crew.
According to the sources, the aggrieved passenger decided to reverse her decision to not file a complaint after consulting family members, following which the airline escalated the issue to the internal committee and filed a police complaint.
If one airline places a person on the no-fly list, then other airlines have the option of whether to impose a similar ban on the individual concerned.
The ban period, under CAR, varies depending on the violations being classified as Level 1, 2 or 3.
For Level 1, which pertains to unruly behaviour such as “physical gestures, verbal harassment, unruly inebriation”, the ban can be for up to three months.
The debarment will be up to six months for Level 2, which pertains to physically abusive behaviour like “pushing, kicking, hitting, grabbing or inappropriate touching or sexual harassment”.
For Level 3 when there is a life-threatening behaviour like damage to aircraft operating systems, “physical violence such as choking, eye gouging, murderous assault, attempted or actual breach of the flight crew compartment etc”, the ban can be from a minimum of two years or more without a limit, as per the norms.
The home ministry can also provide DGCA and airlines with a list of individuals identified as national security threats for inclusion in the no-fly list under the CAR.
Reacting to the incident, stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra shared on Twitter a screenshot of Air India banning him in 2020 following alleged unruly behaviour onboard an IndiGo flight and a screenshot of a media report saying that Air India has banned the passenger who urinated on a female co-passenger for 30 days with a caption “2 Air India’s”.
