On How To Deal With Unruly Fliers, A Reminder From Aviation Watchdog

The country's civil aviation regulator has told airlines to treat unruly passengers with an iron hand on a day an Air India flight to London turned back midway to Delhi after a passenger assaulted two airhostesses.

From passengers urinating on board flights to smoking inside the cabin and fights breaking out between passengers, India's aviation watchdog said it has been seeing frequent incidents that clearly compromise basic flight safety rules.

"In the recent past, DGCA has noticed a few incidents of smoking in aircraft, consumption of alcoholic beverages resulting in unruly behaviour, altercations between passengers and sometimes inappropriate touching or sexual harassment by passengers... wherein pilots and cabin crew members have failed to take appropriate actions. Such incidents have potential of compromising the safety of aircraft operations," the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said in a statement today.

In a reminder to pilots and cabin crew, the DGCA listed out key points of the exhaustive Civil Aviation Rules that specifically address how to handle unruly passengers and any behaviour that could put flight safety at risk.

"... Passengers should be made aware that in case his/her behaviour falls into one of the following categories, he/she is likely to be breaking the law and could be arrested on arrival," the DGCA said, referring to violations such as consuming alcohol or drugs, smoking, not obeying the pilot and giving physical threats, among others.

The regulator told all airlines to remind their pilots and cabin crew about familiarising themselves periodically with rules on handling unruly passengers.

In today's incident involving the Air India flight, a passenger, Jaskirat, allegedly assaulted two cabin crew members, after which the pilot decided to turn back while the plane was flying near Peshawar in Pakistan.

Jaskirat family members have claimed he was mentally unstable.

In November last year, a drunk man urinated on a woman co-passenger on board an Air India plane flying from New York to Delhi. Similar incidents have been reported in recent times, sparking outrage and calls to deal firmly with unruly passengers.