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On Friday, as one airline after other started making public announcement about not allowing Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad in their aircraft, the civil aviation ministry found itself in a peculiar situation.
Senior officials of the ministry led by minister Jayant Sinha were examining if the current laws allowed the airlines to take such a step. “We were examining the legality if the airlines can blacklist a certain person and if they are allowed to refuse boarding to a bonafide ticket holder under the current laws,” a senior civil aviation ministry official said.
Civil aviation secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said that the ministry has received many suggestions from the airlines and was now studying examples of other countries where such a system exist. “We are deciding the modus operandi of having such a list, it has to be full proof if it comes, there should be concrete laws deciding what situations can lead to a person to be blacklisted, how long the ban will last and what will be the redressal mechanism for a passenger if he feels that he has been wrongly indicted,” Choubey told Business Standard in an interview. Among developed markets, UK doesn’t maintain a no- fly list but each individual airline will have its own list and can ban a passenger. Following the 9/11 attacks USA government in coordination with airlines implemented a common no-fly list according to which people who have their name on the list are not permitted to board an aircraft in and out of the country.
Never before it happened that airlines in unision had decided to refuse boarding to a particular person and the person being a parliamentarian added to the urgency. Presently the CAR, Section 3, Series M Part VI which lays down the regulations of how an airline should deal with an unruly passenger allows the airlines to refuse embarkation or being off-loaded but doesn’t have the provision of a permanent black list.
“There are separate provisions of dealing with such passenger when the aircraft’s on ground and it is on air, but not a composite common guideline, in the absence of such a system airlines form their own SOP to deal with a situation,” the official said. For instance, IndiGo has trained its cabin crews to follow a four-level procedure to thwart such incidents on air. The four levels indicate what the crew response should be during incidents like verbal abuse following which a warning is given, to restraining the passengers using handcuffs when a serious incident like breaking into cockpit is attempted. “We want a no fly list,” IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh said.
Senior airline executives also say that maintaining a black list should be preceded by forming mechanism of identifying a passenger. “How does an airline identify a blacklisted person when he doesn’t need to furnish any documentation while booking a ticket, in US social security card is compulsory while booking a domestic ticket, here we have passport compulsory for international booking but nothing while domestic travel, the executive said.
The ministry has been considering bringing a no-fly list for a long time and the current incident allowed them the opportunity to expedite the process. “Great leaders bring in revolution, perhaps this incident by a political leader will bring in revolution in Indian civil aviation",” quipped an airline official.
