There is no centralised system for collecting sexual offence reports from various airlines and devising a special module for training flight attendants in dealing with cases of on-board harassment. By Team Viva
The unfortunate molestation of teen actress Zaira Wasim on board a commercial flight has once again brought the issue of inflight sexual harassment into focus besides forcing a relook at the definition of aviation safety in general, one that is prized as a benchmark in securing the most stringent checks and balances. Yet there is no redressal mechanism in the industry for complaints of sexual harassment on board despite the soaring number of complaints from regular passengers in recent years. What is most significant though is that the issue makes it to discussion boards only when a Randi Zuckerberg, Jessica leeds (who revealed how US president Donald Trump, had groped her in 1979) or in this case Zaira Wasim choose to talk about it. On their part, airlines tend to be status quoists, choosing to rub the issue under the carpet. In this case too, Wasim has claimed that the crew on board didn’t take note of her complaints till she raised a hue and cry during the aircraft’s descent.
It’s not that standard operating procedures do not exist. The usual drill for the crew is to take note of the offender, isolate him/her by relocating him/her to the last row and sometimes seating the errant in between vigilant crew. But the execution falters given that crew have to deal with very tricky territory.
The first major hurdle that crew members often have to deal with in case of violative passengers is establishing the veracity of the complaint. Often the complainant doesn’t want to press charges against the accused, given the mid-air trauma of an offensive experience. There is no witness backup in most cases as the violations happen within ensconced spaces. Cabin attendants are usually fearful of an error of judgment backfiring on them. “Then there is the thin line between sexual harassment or extreme invasion of somebody’s cabin space and bullying for some extra inches of comfort at the cost of another. Both amount to harassment no doubt but we have to be extra careful in containing the situation till the flight time is over,” says a regular cabin crew member on condition of anonymity. Another of her colleagues said, “We can just report a misconduct and once we touch down, it is the law enforcement agency which takes over.” Except medical emergencies, there are no provisions for grounding a flight to the nearest station and deplaning the offender.
Even if alert staff report it, the airline authorities try to deal with the fallout on its branding and seek to settle it at a very personal level without drawing too much attention. Sometimes over-eager crew members even end up getting the wrong end of the stick in a complicated scenario.
The airline also tries to brush aside complaints if they involve CEO, privileged flyers or corporate loyalists of their brand. There have been cases when some crew members have had to face the threat of dismissal. In other cases, both the airline and the concerned crew have had to face the threat of being sued once the allegations had been proved false.
There is no centralised system for collecting sexual offence reports from various airlines and devising a special module for training flight attendants in dealing with such cases.
“This is with regard to passengers. Now imagine the plight as cabin crew members. Be it unwanted attention, flirting, groping or masturbating, crew members routinely face these scenarios while attending on predatory flyers. It is so routine that nobody makes a hue and cry about it but deal with it at their own level. Often these men also turn the tables, reporting us on low service performance,” says a crew member who flies regularly in business class.
While airlines continue to be meticulous about the heel of the shoe and laptops and devices on board a flight, it would be appropriate for them to stop being nebulous and forge a unique code of acceptable inflight behaviour.