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SC underlines ‘creative’ steps for unruly flyers
Individual airlines have also issued standard operating procedures (SOP) for controlling the unruly behaviour of passengers, the ASG said.
That everyone has their own story of a drunk on a plane was evident on Tuesday during a Supreme Court hearing a case on the same, with one of the judges, justice K V Vishwanathan sharing his -- of two drunk passengers, including one who insisted on sleeping it off inside the toilet.
The bench, headed by justice Bhushan R Gavai was interested in finding out why airlines “allow passengers to get intoxicated” while hearing the petition of a 73-year olf woman passenger who was urinated upon by a drunk co-passenger aboard an Air India flight from New York to Delhi in November 2022. It asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to come out with “creative” suggestions to tackle the problem faced on this account .
“In international flights, entry of inebriated passengers may be controlled but what about inside the flight?” the bench asked additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati appearing for Centre and DGCA. She pointed out that in April 2023, DGCA issued guidelines on how to handle unruly or disruptive behaviour of passengers. In addition to it, circulars have been issued to individual airlines and under the above guidelines, accountability has been fixed on the crew, she added.
Individual airlines have also issued standard operating procedures (SOP) for controlling the unruly behaviour of passengers, the ASG said. However, the bench felt this may not be enough. Taking cue from the trauma suffered by the petitioner, who was a senior citizen, the bench said, “You must come out with something creative. For senior citizens, there should be some strategic seating.”
Advocate Tanya Srivastava who appeared for the petitioner said that her only intent in filing the petition was to ensure no one else faced the trauma she did. The incident exposed the complete absence of a complaint redressal mechanism and a lack of sensitivity by the crew, Srivastava added.
ASG Bhati informed the court that in this case, a first information report (FIR) was registered and the airline has been fined ₹30 lakh for not reporting this and another instance of unruly/disruptive behaviour by passengers. Additionally, the license of the pilot-in-command in this case was suspended for a period of three months for failing to discharge duties as per the Civil Aviation Rules (CAR), she added.
The petitioner gave few suggestions based on prevailing international practice requiring the airline and the crew to report such incidents to the authorities/police instead of the burden resting on the passenger. It proposed an online complaint registration mechanism such as “Rail Madad” for Indian Railways which allows passengers to report grievances.
As regards the service of liquor on flight, the petitioner said that India should adopt best practices for handling passenger misconduct by imposing harsher penalties and sharing information about such disruptive passengers with other airlines and authorities to prevent such incidents in future.
The bench directed that a copy of the suggestions, filed through advocate Rahul Narayan, to be given to ASG Bhati to ensure the possibility of suitably modifying the existing guidelines to make it “comprehensive”. The court agreed to take up the matter after two months.
The petition highlighted the necessity for enforcing the guidelines for handling unruly passengers as India with 132 airports caters to world’s third largest air traffic volume. It said that nearly 188 million passengers, both domestic and foreign, need to travel with a minimum standard of safety and security.
Though CAR in relation to “Handling of Unruly Passengers” were issued in September 2017, the incident concerning the petitioner exposed lack of its enforcement, the petition said. CAR categorises such incidents under three heads – unruly behaviour (physical gesture, verbal harassment, unruly inebriation, etc), physically abusive behaviour (including inappropriate touching or sexual harassment) and life-threatening behaviour (damage to aircraft, physical violence and other heinous crimes). It further talked about an internal committee that could place the passenger on “no fly list” pursuant to enquiry.
