- Wednesday, May 01, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Indian carrier Air India has been slapped with a fine of Rs 30 lakh (£29,916) while the license of the pilot, who was in charge of the controversial New York-Delhi flight of November 26 last year where a drunk passenger allegedly urinated on an elderly woman co-passenger, has been suspended for three months by the country’s aviation regulator — Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), NDTV reported.
Besides, it also imposed a penalty of Rs 3 lakh (£2,992) on the carrier’s director-in-flight services for “failing to discharge duties”.
The development came a day after Air India banned the accused passenger, Shankar Mishra, from flying for four months. The latest ban was in addition to the 30-day ban it had imposed on him earlier.
The DGCA had issued show-cause notices to the accountable manager of Air India, the director of the airline’s in-flight services, and all pilots and cabin crew members of the concerned flight as to why enforcement action should not be taken against them for dereliction of their duties.
They were given two weeks’ time to come back with a response.
Mishra, however, has denied all charges against him and claimed through his lawyer last week that the woman had urinated on herself. The latter dismissed the counter allegations as “completely false and concocted and by their very nature are disparaging and derogatory”.
Earlier this month, Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran admitted that Air India’s response to the incident should have been “much swifter”.
His statement came after an apology by Air India CEO Campbell Wilson who informed the airline was reviewing its “policy on service of alcohol in flight”.
