For flyers, the New Year began on a grim note with the disclosure of a shocking onboard urination incident — and the nightmare does not seem to end.
From the urination incident to a bomb hoax. From cancellation and flight delays to onboard fistcuffs. From midair drinking revelry to discovery of a stone in the meal. And the most bizarre of all — a plane taking off without 55 of its passengers. The aviation sector is in the news for all the wrong reasons.
In a shocking incident, on Monday Go First’s Bengaluru-Delhi flight (G8-116) took off at 6.30 am without 55 passengers. The passengers were headed for the plane in the airliner’s bus when the plane took off. Several disgruntled passengers took to Twitter slamming the airline for the unruly behaviour. The airline, after realising its mistake, arranged for another flight for the stranded flyer four hours later.
According to reports, 53 out of 55 passengers were shifted to the second flight, whereas the airline paid the refunds as asked by the remaining two passengers.
The airline has also apologised to passengers and said an inadvertent oversight in the reconciliation of the flight to Delhi led to the incident. It has also ordered an enquiry and derostered all the staff who were involved in the incident.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to the passengers due to an inadvertent oversight in the reconciliation of flight G8 116 from Bengaluru to Delhi,” the airline said in a statement.
On Tuesday, the DGCA issued a show-cause notice to Go First (erstwhile GoAir) and after getting the airline’s response, the regulator said, “Prima facie, it emerges Go First failed to comply with (civil aviation rules).”
Not satisfied with the airline’s reply, the DGCA has issued a show-cause notice to Accountable Manager/ Chief Operation Officer of M/s Go First why enforcement action should not be taken against them for dereliction of their regulatory obligations. The DGCA noted “multiple mistakes” such as lack of proper communication, coordination, reconciliation, and confirmation resulted in a “highly avoidable situation”.
“However, to follow the principles of natural justice, they have been given two weeks time to submit their reply to DGCA and based on that further action will be taken,” the DGCA said.
“Go First failed to comply with the provision specified at para 9 and 13 of CAR Section 3, Series C, Part II issued by DGCA resulted in violation of Para (1A) of Rule 134 read with Schedule XI of the Aircraft Rules, 1937. M/s Go First has failed to comply with the provision specified in para 5.2 of ATC 02 of 2019,” DGCA’s statement read.
“It is pertinent to mention that DGCA has issued Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) Section -3, Series-C, Part-II on “Minimum Requirements for Grant of Air Operator Certificate to Operate Scheduled Air Transport Services (Passenger)” and Air Transport Circular 02 of 2019 on ‘Facilities/Courtesies to esteemed travelling public at airports’,” the statement added.
The DGCA stated that according to regulations, the concerned airline is responsible to ensure adequate arrangement for ground handling, preparation of load and trim sheet, flight dispatch and passenger/cargo handling and also ensure that all the ground handling staff engaged in passenger handling undergo periodic soft skill training for sensitization, courtesy, behaviour and procedures for assisting the passengers.
Go First was under the lense last year due to incidents of passengers arriving at the airport only to find out that their flight did not exist. The carrier was also in the news for facing capacity issues after several of its planes were grounded due to a lack of engines and spare parts, which were delayed due to global supply chain problems.
After the twin peeing incidents, Air India was back in the news on Tuesday when a woman passenger took to Twitter to raise the issue about a piece of stone she found in a meal on board saying that the kind of negligence was “unacceptable”.
The air passenger identified as Sarvapriya Sangwan, who shared two pictures of the meal served to her on Air India flight 215. “You don’t need resources and money to ensure stone-free food Air India. This is what I received in my food served in the flight AI 215 today. Crew member Jadon was informed. This kind of negligence is unacceptable,” Sangwan wrote.
Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has taken note of these incidents and it even sent a notice to airlines on tackling unruly passengers.
Meanwhile, the Moscow to Goa international flight, which had made an emergency landing on Monday at Jamnagar airport in Gujarat following a bomb threat, took off for its destination on Tuesday afternoon after nearly 15 hours as nothing suspicious was found onboard.
The Azur Air international flight took off for Dabolim at around 1:20 pm on Tuesday with all passengers and crew members. “The flight landed at the Dabolim airport in Goa at 2.39 pm,” officials said. All 236 passengers and eight crew members were evacuated safely and the plane was checked by the police along with local authorities and the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) but found nothing, the official further said.