Air India deliberates creating no-fly list post unruly behaviour of MP

New Delhi, Mar 23, 2017: A Shiv Sena MP apparently assaulted an Air India airline staff- 60 years old, with slipper, at the IGI airport in New Delhi today. Following the incident, Air India is deliberating creating a no-fly list for unruly passengers.

A senior official said, "Air India is considering preparation of a no-fly list of unruly passengers on the lines of other carriers."

Ravindra Gaikwad, Shiv Sena MP, who was flying from Pune to Delhi on an Air India flight, hit Sukumar, the airline's duty manager with his slipper several times, when Sukumar asked him to unboard the plane after the minister denied doing so once the plane landed at the Delhi airport.

PTI reported the airlines sources saying, " The lawmaker turned violent, tore the duty manager's shirt, broke his spectacles and hit him several times with his slippers."

Possessing a business class ticket, Gaikwad insisted on taking the airline's early morning flight from Pune to Delhi, Flight AI-852; which happens to be an all-economy class flight. This stiked an argument between the MP and the airline staff in Pune, leading to the assault in Delhi, on landing.

In recent times, there have been many incidents of unruly behaviour by the passengers, across various airlines.

AirAsia, in the previous month, had filed a police complaint against two drunk passengers for creating a nuisance onboard.

In January, on one of its flight from Dubai to New Delhi, IndiGo had to tie down a passenger to his seat for being violent onboard.

According to official data, 53 incidents of unruly behaviour by the passengers have been reported by domestic airlines between July 2016 and Feb 2017.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), unruly passengers make the list of the top three safety concerns of the cabin crew.

As per the IATA, in 2015, there were 10,854 reported cases of unruly behaviour by the passengers across airlines worldwide, which translate into one incident for every 1,205 flights.

-Prepared by Nikita Saraf, Twitter: @niki_saraf