Taking a note of the increasing incidents of "disruptive and unruly passengers" on flights in the last few months, the Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) has come out with recommendations to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to prevent such incidents.
In a letter to the DGCA Director General Vikram Dev Dutt, the DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal said that the commission has drafted detailed recommendations on the amendments that should be made to the prevalent guidelines so that cases of sexual harassment and unruly behaviour are dealt with strictly on flights and in airports.
In the guidelines, it has also proposed setting up mechanisms to raise an alarm on flights, CCTVs to be installed in aircraft and announcements and brochures against sexual harassment in flights. The Commission’s recommendations have come in the wake of the increasing incidents of disruptive and unruly passengers on flights in the past few months including cases of harassment and misconduct by passengers on two flights.
The first one was on November 26, 2022, when a man reportedly flashed his private parts and urinated on a 70-year-old woman on an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi. The other one was reported on December 6, 2022, in which a man again urinated on the seat of his fellow woman passenger on an Air India flight from Paris to New Delhi.
"Media has reported recent cases of harassment and misconduct by passengers in two flights, one on November 26, 2022 in which a man reportedly flashed his private part and urinated on a 70-year-old woman in an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi and another on December 6, 2022, in which a man again urinated on the seat of his fellow woman passenger on an Air India flight from Paris to New Delhi. It has been reported that both these men were in a highly inebriated state," the panel said. It said it has taken suo-moto cognizance of these incidents and issued a notice to DGCA, seeking details of the action taken by them along with the guidelines issued by the regulator to airlines for tackling such cases.
"In response, the panel was provided a copy of certain guidelines by DGCA along with a copy of the advisory issued by DGCA dated January 1, 2023 to be followed by all airlines. "Upon examining the guidelines and the advisory, the commission has observed that these do not provide specific instructions to airlines to properly handle, report, and redress cases of sexual harassment of female passengers at airport or on flights. Further, they don't list out any steps to deal with highly intoxicated passengers," it noted. The recommendations include action against highly intoxicated persons, including preventing such persons from boarding the aircraft, protocols to handle such passengers on plane and severely limiting alcohol intake on flights. It has also proposed action against persons indulging in sexual harassment on flights.
These include registration of FIR against the offender, setting up an independent committee to probe the complaints of sexual harassment from passengers headed by a retired woman judge, increasing punishment against such passengers including increasing time period for which they can be put on no-fly list from six months to two years, sensitising airline staff and setting up protocols for using restraining devices on passengers indulging in sexual harassment in case all other means of stopping him on flights fail.
