While there seems to be no end to the menace of bomb threat messages targeting Indian airlines, as about 80 more flights, operating on domestic and international routes, received fresh threats from Monday night to Tuesday, it has also had a huge financial impact on the airline operators who already under financial stress, operations stakeholders like security forces logistics and regulatory bodies to under take the drill to ensure safe flight.
According to estimates from aviation industry sources, it costs about Rs one to three Crores, on an average, to undertake the security drills and the burden is on all the stakeholders from government to the private agencies. Which means given the total of 180 flights that have undergone the process after the hoax calls an additional burden of about Rs 300 Crore.
“Following the laid down protocols, relevant authorities were immediately alerted, and all security procedures strictly adhered to, as per guidance from the regulatory authorities and security agencies,” an Air India spokesperson said in a statement.
Protocols for the Bomb Threat Assessment Committee (BTAC), is convened in the event of a bomb threat call to an aircraft or airport, to tackle the spate of the ongoing “random” Internet-based threats being made to various Indian airlines.
On Monday night, the BTAC that assembled at seven airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Pune, Mangalore, Bengaluru and Kozhikode declared as “hoax or nonspecific” bomb threat messages sent to 30 flights belonging to three carriers - Air India, Vistara and Indigo.
The threat was assessed as “non specific” as it was found that one X handle posted these “bombs onboard” messages for 10 flights each of these three carriers between 10.46 pm and 11.42 pm.
The protocol undertaken by the BTAC has been tweaked and a fine assessment, acting on a set of new ‘red flags’, is being undertaken now, the sources added.
The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the respective airline security have also been asked to ensure “focussed” security protocols for frisking passengers, their baggage and the aircraft so that nothing is left to chance while preparing a flight, they said.
When it is established that the bomb or hijack threat message made through social media was published “without any rationale”, the BTAC will categorise it “non specific or hoax” so that passengers and airlines crew are not harassed and their precious time is not wasted, they said, without elaborating on the specific details due to operational reasons.
There will still be some cases where a message or call will be declared “specific” but that will not be done en masse, the sources said. Aviation security officials said they expect that these new measures will help to ease “some” trouble posed by these fake social media or phone call messages.
Cyber security agencies have said some of these threats are triggered from virtual private network (VPN) activated Internet connections and many such handles, especially on X, were created only a few hours or days before they posted the threats to various airlines.
The most recent threats targeted flights to major destinations such as Jeddah, Riyadh and Medina are in Saudi Arabia, Istanbul and Doha are the capital of Turkey and Qatar respectively. This has led to disrupting schedules, bleeding airlines and panic among passengers during the peak festive season. This is the first time that hoax callers have targeted flights bound to Middle East countries.
Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu has said that making hoax bomb threat calls to airlines will be made a cognisable offence.
