No Peace in the Air The Unruly Passenger

Given the growing concern from airlines, regulators and passengers at the increasing frequency and severity of incidents involving violence against crew and co-passengers. It is high time for practical steps to be taken to address and significantly reduce the problem by reining in these unruly and disruptive passengers. As most of the time these incidents escape public and media scrutiny, culprits most often go unpunished. This results in harassment of the crew and endangerment of safety norms. Schedules get disrupted and cause inconvenience, delays and diversions.

- Sonia Dutt

2023 began with an indecent incident involving a passenger travelling business class on Air India in an aberrated state urinating on an elderly lady. This 'Pee-Gate' incident went viral. The elderly lady being dealt with insensitivity and the airline's attempt to keep the matter under wraps and not take adequate action against the culprit triggered debates sending global signals about the aggressive and unacceptable inflight behavior of Indian passengers, especially after the two back-to-back incidents. A very demeaning and aggressive image of Indian travellers has since emerged.

Unruly behaviour is nothing new to the Aviation sector and many such incidents have happened across the globe on different airlines, which highlights that unruly behaviour has no nationality. Some of the recent incidents...

Virgin Australia- On January 05, 2023, an unruly passenger was kicked out of the aircraft by the pilot on a flight between Townsville to Sydney after the passenger got into a verbal spat which escalated into a scuffle.

Air India- A drunk business class passenger urinated on a fellow passenger-an elderly lady, on November 26, 2022, from New York to New Delhi flight. Also, on December 06, 2022, on Paris to Delhi flight, another male passenger urinated on a vacant seat and the blanket of another passenger.

Aero Mexico-Passengers on board AN165 took cover as gunshots rang out in Culiacan on board Embraer aircraft on January 05, 2023.

Go First- Two customers were offloaded for making inappropriate remarks at the cabin crew. These passengers passed abusive comments on the female cabin crew on the GA-372 flight, as reported on January 07, 2023. They were offloaded and handed over to the security agency for further action.