Senior Air India Official Assaulted By ‘Unruly Passenger’ On Delhi-Bound Flight; No Action Yet

New Delhi: A senior Air India official was allegedly assaulted by an unruly passenger on a recent Sydney-New Delhi flight, Hindustan Times reported.

“The airline’s head of inflight services department, Sandeep Verma, who was flying from Sydney to Delhi on AI-301 (on July 9) was hit by a Delhi-based passenger. However, no action was taken against him,” HT quoted an official as saying.

The Air India spokesperson informed that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was informed about the matter.

“A passenger on board AI-301, operating from Sydney to Delhi on July 9 behaved in an unacceptable manner during flight, despite verbal and written warnings, causing distress to other passengers, which included one of our employees,” the spokesperson said.

“Upon the flight’s safe landing at Delhi, the passenger was handed over to the security agency, and the passenger later apologised in writing. The DGCA was duly informed of the incident. Air India will take a firm stand against misbehaviour. We will pursue this to the full extent of the law,” the spokesperson added.

He, therefore, had to be downgraded to the economy class.

Verma, who was downgraded to the economy class, was then allotted seat 30C. He later moved to row 25 since it was vacant.

Verma then began correcting his co-passenger, who was freely walking around in the galley and also picked up a few alcohol bottles, and had a loud voice.

“It was then that the passenger slapped Verma, twisted his head and abused him,” the official added.

Verma rushed to the rear side of the aircraft, but five female crew of the economy class could not contain the rowdy passenger.

“The male cabin supervisor from the business class had to be called in to control the situation. The passenger was issued a verbal and a written warning after which the situation was brought under control,” a second official told HT.

“The crew did not use restraining devices on Verma’s request and no police complaint was filed,” the second official informed.

According to International Air Transport Association (IATA) data, there was one incident of unruly passenger for every 568 flights in 2022 — much higher than in 2021, when one incident was reported for every 835 flights.