Senior official of Air India assaulted onboard Sydney-New Delhi flight

“The airline’s head of the inflight services department, Sandeep Verma, who was flying from Sydney to Delhi on AI 301 was hit by a Delhi-based passenger. However, no action was taken against him,” an official close to the matter told HT.

“A passenger on board AI301 operating Sydney-Delhi on 9 July 2023 behaved in an unacceptable manner during flight, despite verbal and written warnings, causing distress to other passengers, which included one of our employees,” the airline spokesperson told HT.

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

The incident occurred as Sandeep Verma who had a business class reservation but was downgraded to economy class as some of the business class seats were defunctive.

“Verma accepted the downgrade and was then allotted seat 30C. He, however, later moved to row 25 since it was vacant. After shifting, Verma began correcting his co-passenger (who was freely walking around in the galley and also picked up a few alcohol bottles for no reason) and had a loud voice. This is when the passenger slapped Verma and twisted his head and abused him,” the official added.

Verbal and written warnings

Amid the scuffle, Sandeep Verma rushed to the rear side of the aircraft and the female cabin crew members tried to stop the unruly 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 in the know of the incident said.

“The crew did not use restraining devices (that are available onboard flights operating on the Australian sector) on the request of Verma and no police complaint was filed,” the second official confirmed.

Precarious situation

“This incident brings to light the precarious situation of mishandling in the airline with respect to unruly passengers,” a former airline official said.

“If the airline could take strict action against all the previous passengers despite getting written apologies from them, then they should have ensured strict action against this passenger too,” the official added.

“The airline should set examples of zero tolerance towards such matters. However, this case highlights just the opposite. They are sending a poor message to travelers by not taking action against an unruly passenger who assaulted their senior management,” the second former official said.

The incident is just another addition to the huge number of cases of unruly behavior onboard flights. As per the International Air Transport Association (IATA)’s there was one unruly incident for every 568 flights in 2022.

Updated: 15 Jul 2023, 10:02 PM IST