Directorate-General of Civil Aviation, airlines seek new rules to check increasing in-flight passenger misconduct

Following frequent cases of passengers getting unruly on flights, India’s Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) as well as India-based airlines are seeking new legislation to check in-flight misbehaviour.

A many as four cases pf passenger misconduct onboard have been reported within just one week. In two of those incidents, three high-profile footballers and an officer of the merchant navy were arrested and later released on bail over charges of molesting women on board.

According to Dr Nasim Zaidi, Director-General of Civil Aviation, there are existing laws in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to deal with misbehaviour on board flights. But still, the officials of the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation are engaged in the process of forming guidelines for specific laws regarding in-flight offences.

The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation, according to Dr Nasim Zaidi, will refer the guidelines formulated to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

The International Civil Aviation Organization had, in 2001, asked its member-countries to include stern rules against misbehaviour by passengers.

According to aviation expert Captain A Ranganathan, the International Civil Aviation Organisation has released a document on disruptive passenger behaviour. The regulations in the ICAO document should have been implemented 8 years ago, but they have not been put into practice so far.

The media quoted a top official of a major private airline based in India as saying that, after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the International Civil Aviation Organisation had drafted model legislation on offences aboard civil aircraft and had urged the member-nations to incorporate the model legislation into their national laws. However, India did not do as was directed by the ICAO.

Further, the ICAO Journal had warned of a substantial increase in in-flight passenger misbehaviour, the airline official added.

Meanwhile, senior airline officials in India said they were holding talks with the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation over enforcing stringent rules to prevent unruly passenger behaviour, following what they described as a “sudden and alarming” increase in the cases of offences by passengers reported by female cabin crew.

In-flight passenger misconduct, besides causing hardships and inconveniencing to the passengers and the cabin crew, has been one of the main reasons for unscheduled and emergency landings. For example, the diversion of Air India’s Dubai-Calicut flight to Mumbai, after a passenger allegedly misbehaved with a fellow woman passenger, is estimated to have cost the airline about Rs 2 million.

Senior officials of airlines said they are holding discussions with the cabin safety inspectors of the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation to formulate rules and ways to check passenger misbehaviour. Even though there are currently laws to deal with such misconduct, the airlines are seeking new rules that would dissuade passengers from pestering the crew, an official of a private carrier said.

At the same time, aviation experts point out, even now few airlines based in India are following the ‘air-rage rules’ framed by the International Air Travel Association (IATA) intended to be implemented worldwide. These regulations of the IATA, however, are not are not binding on the airlines, but left to their discretion.