The incident involving an unruly passenger returning to the capital from Goa aboard an IndiGo flight was absurd to the point of being ridiculous. Consider the bizarre chain of events.
Something seems to have really upset Jitender Mohla. After the flight had taken off — and I am yet to figure out what the provocation was — he claimed a series of things, going by newspaper reports.
He claimed he was armed, and would hijack the plane. He said he had two other associates on board to help him. He further claimed to belong to a “terror group called Maula”, and told an airhostess that he was “carrying a pouch of infected needles that, if pricked, could sedate people”. He also apparently tried to reach out to one crew member’s neck and pointed to a nerve which, if cut, would lead to death. Mohla also claimed to be, at different times, a DGCA official, a sky marshal and a pilot! I, for one, don’t really blame the crew for panicking. Neither can anyone be blamed for thinking he was drunk; in fact, one shudders to think that he claimed all this despite not being drunk.
Look at what happened next. The pilot asked for an emergency landing — delaying several other aircraft. The aircraft was taken to the isolation bay at the airport. The Prime Minister, the Home Minister and presumably all other relevant ministers were alerted to the situation. The committee of secretaries on anti-hijack, chaired by Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrashekar, met immediately to resolve the situation. NSG commandos and CISF personnel surrounded the aircraft. Airport security swung into action and the Delhi Police’s Quick Response Team was put on alert. Meanwhile, word had begun to spread that there was a possible hijack, leading to panic. The civil aviation secretary (the minister was away to Davos) held a briefing. A senior aviation ministry official told me that they were discussing this issue till 11 pm and relaxed only when they got to know that it was a false scare. Huge resources were spent, eventually for nothing.
Of course, not all passengers will create such trouble, but nonetheless it can be quite annoying. Sometime last year, I was returning on a Jet Airways flight from Bangkok. For obvious reasons, the Indian crowd travelling back from Bangkok cannot be described as the most cultured lot. There was a largish group of men fighting over every drink with the air hostesses (they wanted her to leave the bottle with them which she sensibly refused and, for a brief moment, I thought one of them would sock her). The group insisted on shouting rather than speaking with each other throughout the flight, the decibel level kept increasing with every drink. They were quite excited to be noticed and to create general mayhem in the aircraft. At the end of the flight — to my absolute amazement — one of them actually stood with his shoes on the seat since he could not wait to get to his luggage and exit the plane!
Mohla landed in jail and has not yet been granted bail but I have two or three suggestions to “prevent” such things from happening. For one, there should be very stiff financial penalties in situations like this. Not only was precious time wasted, the entire chain of events would have cost the exchequer a pretty penny. If, for the sake of argument, the entire follow-up action on account of his behaviour cost the state, say, Rs 20 crore, let him be asked to pay a large proportion of this. If passengers are aware that their actions and behaviour could lead to stiff financial penalties, I think they may — barring the seriously mentally ill — behave better.
Secondly, more — actually all — Indian carriers should be encouraged to maintain a blacklist of passengers. In November 2007, Spring Airlines, a China-based private carrier, blacklisted passengers that refused to get off planes during previous disputes. It even refused to accept their orders and also said that passengers were free to complain to the Civil Aviation Department if they wanted to.
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In April 2008, British Airways banned supermodel Naomi Campbell from flying the airline after a row over some missing baggage, which led to her being arrested. It clearly did not matter that she was famous and a frequent flyer with the airline.
Many global commercial carriers maintain a small but, by some accounts, growing list of passengers they refuse to transport. The reasons for being blacklisted can include disorderly conduct, refusal to comply with a crew member’s instructions, abusive behaviour towards an airline employee or even sue-happy flyers. Indian carriers need to urgently follow their lead.
I remember reading of a well-publicised case of an airline telling a customer to take her business elsewhere. Several years ago, Herbert D Kelleher, the then Southwest Airline’s chief executive, was asked to respond personally to a frequent critic who was unhappy with virtually every aspect of her flight experience. After going through her repeated letters, the CEO replied to the woman, referred to internally as “Mrs Crabapple,” with the following note: “Dear Mrs Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.”