PremiumDays after two incidents of drunk men urinating on women on Air India flights came forth, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday issued an advisory to the Head of Operations of all Scheduled Airlines with regard to handling the unruly passengers on board and respective responsibilities as per the regulations, advising the use of force when all other options have been exhausted.
In its advisory, the aviation regulator has said that “applying restraining devices should be used when all conciliatory approaches have been exhausted".
Earlier, the aviation regulator on Thursday issued notices to the officials and crew of the New York-Delhi flight, asking why action should not be taken against them for "dereliction" of duty while handling the November 26 'urination' incident. The DGCA held that Air India's conduct appeared to be "unprofessional" in the two incidents.
Meanwhile, DGCA has sought a report from Tata Group-owned Air India on an incident of a drunk passenger allegedly urinating on the blanket of a female passenger on the airline's Paris-New Delhi flight last month, which it did not report to the regulator, a senior official has said. In November, a passenger had urinated on an elderly woman.
The accused, identified as Shankar Mishra, is reportedly a resident of Mumbai and has been absconding since the incident. He allegedly urinated on an elderly female passenger onboard an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi. His last location has been traced to Bengaluru in Karnataka.
Shankar Mishra has reportedly been sacked by his company, Wells Fargo following the incident.
In another incident, a man urinated on the blanket of a female passenger on a Paris-New Delhi flight. Air India on Thursday confirmed the incident, which took place on December 6 last year.
As per DGCA sources, an airline is bound to report any incident to the aviation safety regulator immediately.
"Air India did not report the incident of a passenger urinating on the blanket of a female passenger. We have sought a report from the airline," the DGCA official told PTI.