Pee-Gate: Air India Fined 30 Lakhs, Pilot’s Licence Suspended For 3 Months

Air India has been fined ₹ 30 lakh and the licence of the pilot-in-charge of its New York-Delhi flight on which a drunk passenger peed on a woman has been suspended for three months by the aviation regulator Director General of Civil Aviation.

“We acknowledge gaps in our reporting and are taking relevant steps to ensure that they are addressed,” said the airline after the watchdog’s action.

A penalty of ₹ three lakh has also been imposed on director-in-flight services of Air India for “failing to discharge her duties” by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

This comes a day after the airline imposed a four-month flying ban on the passenger, Shankar Mishra, for the urinating incident on November 26 last year. The ban was in addition to the 30-day ban it had imposed on him earlier.

“We’re also strengthening our crews’ awareness of and compliance with policies on handling of incidents involving unruly passengers,” Air India said in a statement today.

The incident came to the notice of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) only on January 4 and the latest actions are for violations of various norms.

Shankar Mishra had walked away when the flight reached India. On November 27, the woman wrote to the Air India group chairman about the horrid incident. Air India filed a police complaint only on January 4, claiming it didn’t go to the police as it felt both sides had “settled the matter”. He was arrested by the Delhi Police two days later, six weeks after the incident.

On January 6, The DGCA had issued a show-cause notice to the Accountable Manager of Air India, the Director of in-flight Services of Air India, and all the pilots and cabin crew members of that flight as to why enforcement action should not be taken against them for dereliction of their regulatory obligations. They were given two weeks’ time to submit their reply.

The Tata group-owned airline submitted its reply this morning.

Shankar Mishra has denied all the charges against him and claimed that the woman “urinated on herself”. The allegations have been dismissed by the woman 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 followed an apology by Air India CEO Campbell Wilson who informed the airline was reviewing its “policy on service of alcohol in flight”.