What Happens When Airlines Ban A Passenger From Flying Depends On Who You Are

Ever since Tuesday, there is a lot of conversation about the 'No-fly list', following the mid-air altercation between stand up comedian Kunal Kamra and news anchor Arnab Goswami.

After the incident, IndiGo announced that Kamra has been suspended from flying with the airline for six months.

On the advice of Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, national carrier Air India and private carriers SpiceJet and GoAir followed suite with 'ban until further notice' form their flights.

However many have since pointed out that the six-month ban on Kamra by IndiGo did not follow the due process set by the Director-General of Civil Aviation.

AFP

According to the No-fly list rules of DGCA, any passenger accused of misconduct can be blacklisted by the airline for a set period of time, based on the nature of the act.

Level 1: Behaviour that is verbally unruly, and calls for debarment up to 3 months.

Level 2: Physical unruliness and can lead to the passenger being debarred from flying for up to 6 months

Level 3: Life-threatening behaviour where the debarment would be for a minimum of 2 years.

It also specifies that until an internal probe by the airline is completed the passenger can be suspended for a maximum of 30 days. However, Kamra who faces a level 1 charge which carries a maximum ban of three months has already been banned by IndiGo even before the inquiry is completed.

The DGCA came up with the idea of the no-fly list and rules to deal with unruly passengers in 2017 after the then Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad slapped an Air India crew member.

In May 2018 Birju Kishore Salla, a Mumbai-based jeweller who created a hijack scare on a Jet Airways' flight became the first person to be put on the same.

Salla's act of leaving a hijack message in the business class lavatory of a Mumbai-Delhi flight on October 30, 2017, which had forced the plane to divert to Ahmedabad, has led Jet to ban him from flying its planes for five years.

In 2018 there was another incident involving a 62-year-old passenger who allegedly molested a cabin crew member of Air Vistara from Lucknow to Delhi. Even though initially it was reported that the accused, Rajeev Vasant Dani could be put on the no-fly list, there was no follow-through.

So that means currently there is only one on the list, Birju Kishore Salla. And most likely Kamar will join him soon.

But what happened to Gaikwad?

Technically, Gaikwad was never put on a no-fly list, because there was no such list then. Air India whose crew was on the receiving end of Gaikwad's attack had banned him from flying. The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) comprising of Jet Airways, SpiceJet, GoAir, and IndiGo also followed through and banned Gaikwad.

But the ban did not even last for 15 days. Under pressure from Shiv Sena which was then a BJP ally, the Civil Aviation Minister at the time Ashok Gajapathi Raju wrote to Air India to revoke the ban.

The national carrier obliged and FIA followed. And Gaikwad who once again got the right to fly took the same Air India flight on which he had slapped the crew member.

Another potential incident that could have invoked the no fly list, when BJP MP Pragya Thakur caused a 45-minute flight delay over her seat did not even come up for consideration because the pilot-in-command of the SpiceJet flight did not make the complaint as per the set rules.