DGCA to push for new law against unruly passengers

In 2001,the ICAO had urged member nations to include stringent regulations against passenger misbehaviour. “There is an ICAO document on unruly passenger behaviour supposed to have been implemented eight years ago but hasn’t been yet,” said air safety expert Capt. A. Ranganathan.

“After 9/11,a draft model legislation on offences on board civil aircraft was considered by the ICAO Council which the organisation urged member countries to incorporate into their national laws. But in India,it did not happen,” said senior official of a leading private carrier who did not wish to be named. “The ICAO journal had then warned of a considerable rise in passenger misbehaviour¿” he added.

Senior airline officials confirmed that airlines were in touch with the Cabin Safety Inspector (CSI) of the DGCA to expedite such a law. “You need more such laws as existing laws are subjective and depend on how serious police of a particular station react,” said the official.

“Whenever problems like these (sexual harassment on board) come up,you need to bring in new regulations that can only be formed using ICAO guidelines,” said H S Khola,former president of the ICAO Assembly and former DGCA.

“We would welcome such a regulation as such incidents not only lead to loss of money owing to diversion of the aircraft among other things but carriers also get a bad name for something that’s beyond their control,” said Air India executive director (corporate communications),Jitender Bhargava.

Footballers will be sent notices

Officials from the Airport Police Station are in the process of sending out notices to Onyeka Okolie,Kalu Nnanna Ogba and Arindam Bhattacharya to bring them back to the city for further questioning. The three were earlier arrested and charged with allegedly molesting an airhostess on board a SpiceJet aircraft on January 6. “We have enough statements from eyewitnesses along with other evidence and will be sending them notifications on Thursday asking them to come back for further interrogation,” said Gulab Patil,Investigating Officer of the case.

The chart,Last week

January 3: 10-15 passengers forced over 200 other passengers and cabin crew on AI’s Delhi-bound flight AI 891A to stay within the aircraft for over 15 hours as they were annoyed when the flight was cancelled.

January 5: Churchill players,Odafa Onyeka Okolie,Kalu Nnanna Ogba and Arindam Bhattacharya were accused of molesting a SpiceJet airhostess while the flight was on its way from Goa to Mumbai. They got bail and have flown to Kolkata.

January 10:  Brown Augustine D’Souza (56),a Vasai resident was arrested by Sahar police for allegedly molesting,under the influence of alcohol,a Jet Airways airhostess.

January 10: An inebriated passenger was offloaded from a Calicut-bound AI aircraft and handed over to airport security. He forced the Dubai-Calicut flight IC 537 captain to divert the plane to Mumbai and offload him as he created a ruckus and allegedly misbehaved with a woman seated behind him.