NEW DELHI: The civil aviation ministry on Monday said three passengers have been put on the ‘No Fly List’ this year while a total of 63 passengers were placed on the list in 2022.
A total of 143 passengers have been put on the list since 2017, according to data provided by the ministry to the Rajya Sabha.
These passengers were placed on the list as recommended by airlines’ internal committees set up as per aviation regulator DGCA’s Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) pertaining to the handling of unruly/disruptive passengers.
The CAR was notified in September 2017 as a measure to deal with the issue related to the handling of unruly/disruptive passengers.
“As on date, there are 143 passengers who have been placed in ‘No Fly List’ for such period, as per the recommendations of airline’s internal committee since 2017,” Minister of State for Civil Aviation V K Singh told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.
As per the data, Air India has put three passengers on the list in 2023.
In 2022, IndiGo placed 46 individuals on the No Fly List while Vistara had put 16 passengers on the list.
SpiceJet had put 1 passenger on the list, the data showed.
According to the data, in 2021, a total of 45 individuals were put on the list by IndiGo, 19 by Vistara and 2 by AirAsia.
IndiGo had put 10 people on the list in 2020 and the now defunct Jet Airways had placed one passenger on the No Fly List in 2017.
In another written reply, the minister said that a total of 63 passengers have been placed on the list last year.
“These include two incidents of urinating that have come to the notice of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in last year. The majority of the passengers placed on ‘No Fly List’ were for the violation related to not wearing masks or not obeying the instructions of the crew members,” he said.
The CAR related to the handling of unruly passengers is applicable to all Indian operators engaged in scheduled and non-scheduled air transport services, both domestic and international, for carriage of passengers.
It is also applicable to all airport operators within Indian territory, all passengers during the period of air travel in or over India and all foreign carriers subject to compliance of the Tokyo Convention 1963.
The CAR provides measures to pre-empt such incidents by way of training of flight crew, cabin crew and ground staff in soft skills to deal with unruly passengers besides how to detect, diffuse and prevent a critical situation.
“It also provides for training of such operative personnel for dealing with conflict and its aftermath, ways/means to mitigate situations arising due to long waiting lines, flight being overbooked, delays and diversion/cancellation as well as lack of information, etc,” Singh said.
