After Another Air India Incident, DGCA Issues Advisory To Airlines On Dealing With Unruly Passenger Behaviour

After another Air India incident, aviation regulator Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has taken note of the rising cases and issued an advisory. DGCA on Monday issued an advisory to airlines reiterating ways to deal with passengers resorting to unruly behaviour. 

According to the advisory issued by DGCA, there are provisions under the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) that allow an airline to take action against a passenger that behaves in an inappropriate manner. However, this doesn’t end here alone.

DGCA, in its advisory, also mentioned that the CAR also lists the responsibilities of pilots, cabin crew members and director of inflight services. Hence, it is important to take note of those and abide by them while dealing with passengers. 

Lately, with a rise in incidents of unruly passenger behaviour, DGCA has also called out the flight members like captain and cabin crew wherever it felt that they failed to take appropriate actions. The aviation regulator even said that it has noticed some incidents of smoking and alcohol consumption on aircraft, which have resulted in passengers behaving inappropriately. 

Further, DGCA has also emphasised that all airlines must categorise these incidents into the following categories:

• Level 1 – Unruly behaviour (physical gestures, verbal harassment, unruly inebriation etc)
• Level 2 – Physical abusive behaviour (pushing, kicking, hitting, grabbing or inappropriate touching or sexual harassment etc)
• Level 3 – Life threatening behaviour (damage to aircraft operating systems, physical violence such as choking, eye gouging, murderous assault attempted or actual breach of the flight crew compartment etc.)

“Head of operations of all Airlines are hereby advised to sensitize their pilots, Cabin Crew and post holders on handling of unruly passengers through appropriate means including but not limited to training programmes for ensuring effective monitoring, maintenance of good order and discipline on board the aircraft safety of aircraft operations is not jeopardized in any manner,” DGCA said in a statement.