New Delhi, May 8.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the government and the DGCA on a petition, filed by a 72-year-old woman who was allegedly peed on by a drunk passenger on a New York-New Delhi flight, seeking a protocol to deal with such “inappropriate behaviour” on flights.
The woman claimed that after her traumatic experience on board the Air India flight, the crew did not even offer her an alternative seat even though other seats were available on the flight. Nor was she told of her rights in the face of such inappropriate behaviour.
She accused the airline of filing an FIR after a month even though it was a criminal act and the airlines ought to have immediately lodged an FIR on arrival. The crew also did not inform the Air Traffic Control of the incident, she alleged.
Instead, the crew actively coerced her to settle with the accused and share her phone number with the accused on the pretext that it would help him reimburse the costs of dry-cleaning her clothes etc, she alleged.
She sought court intervention to get airlines and the civil aviation authorities to set up a protocol dealing with unruly passengers on board flights and the remedies available to the victims of such traumatic incidents.
There ought to be a zero-tolerance policy against those who act in an unruly manner on flights, she said. A standard operating procedure must be set up to deal with such incidents, she said.
She prayed that the court direct the Director General Civil Aviation to put in place an SOP which would mandate all airlines to report such incidents to the law enforcement agencies failing which they must face action.
The civil aviation regulations must treat drunkenness or inebriation per se as unruly behaviour and act as such.
