Air India crew betrayed lack of training in dealing with unruly bladders

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has served show-cause notices to the airline, its cabin crew and pilots for what it termed as the airline’s “unprofessional conduct”. (Representative image)

The stains on the seats may go away but the stench of urine will haunt Air India for a long time. The disgusting incidents on board two of its international flights in the last one month are a measure of the distance the airline needs to travel to shake off its well-earned reputation for abysmal quality and poor service. It is also a reminder to its new owners, the Tata group, that improvements in food or upholstery are like lipstick on a pig and that even multi-billion-dollar orders for new aircraft won't be enough to bring discerning flyers back to an airline that they abandoned decades ago. After the current series of events, there is little reason for anyone to rethink that decision.

A passenger urinating on another in mid-flight is the stuff of bad Hollywood comedies. That he should continue to do so without intervention from the airline's crew is alarming. But what is truly baffling is what happened when the flight landed. Air India let the passenger get away without taking any action. Worse, for nearly a month it forgot about the incident and only woke up following a media report.

No surprise that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has served show-cause notices to the airline, its cabin crew and pilots for what it rightly termed as the airline’s “unprofessional conduct”. But it is worse than that. Their conduct seemed to indicate a complete lack of training and laid down procedures for dealing with such an event.

Implementing SOPs

Passengers getting drunk and urinating on others or doing worse things, are a part of every airline's horror list. It falls in the bracket of Level two incidents and requires a different kind of handling than a level one incident of verbal abuse by a passenger, which can be de-escalated by the crew with some firm persuasion. Beyond that, offending passengers need to be restrained by force if necessary. Many airlines carry duct tape precisely for use in such extreme situations. A few also include plastic handcuffs in their onboard kits. In July last year when a passenger on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Charlotte turned violent and bit one of the attendants, she was bound to her seat with heavy-duty tape and handed over to law enforcement officers on landing.

Given how common such incidents are, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) at its 70th AGM in June 2014, unanimously adopted a set of core principles for dealing with the issue of unruly passenger behaviour. IATA also works with airlines to provide guidance and training, for example in de-escalation techniques and the responsible service of alcohol during flights. In India too, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has clear norms on dealing with such passengers but expects airlines to have their standard operating procedures to implement these. That’s what seems to have been missing on board the two flights on which the passengers urinated on co-passengers, and soiled their clothes and the seats, before walking out of the plane, presumably relieved at getting away.

READ | Air India CEO to staff after 'peeing' horror: 'Take firm action against unruly passengers'

It seems obvious that the crew needed to take visible action against the culprits. While the poor lady who was the immediate victim deserves all the sympathy, the fact is a drunk passenger who has lost control over his bladder, also constituted a threat to the hundreds of other passengers on the plane. Firm and instant action then was the need of the hour. And we have seen that in some cases in the past. The crew mostly have the backing of their airlines when they take such actions. It was heartening to see Indigo supporting one of its crew members for pushing back against a rude and offensive passenger on a recent flight. Clearly, the young lady in that instance was well trained and aware of her rights and how far she would let passenger misbehaviour go.

In its earlier avatar as a public sector undertaking, Air India had built a reputation for tolerating passenger misbehaviour. Over time the airline acquired a reputation for being lax about everything, including service and discipline. Changing that culture and the image of chalta hai is going to be the biggest challenge for the Tatas as they seek to turn around the fortunes of the bleeding airline.

Sundeep Khanna is a senior journalist. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.