- Thursday, February 27, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S largest airline IndiGo is set to carry out an internal case study on how to handle specially abled passengers better, especially at a time when they feel distressed, its chief executive officer (CEO) Ronojoy Dutta said.
India’s aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had last week fined IndiGo Rupees 5 lakh (£5,168) on charges of disallowing a specially abled child at the Ranchi airport in the eastern state of Jharkhand on May 7.
Two days later, the carrier said that the boy was denied permission to board the flight to Hyderabad as he was visibly panicked.
Speaking to the Press Trust of India on Tuesday (31), Dutta said the airline would not appeal against the DGCA’s call to impose the fine.
“Some people are asking me this question — are you going to appeal? Of course not,” he said.
He added that IndiGo will take note of the DGCA’s findings and implement each one of them.
“So, they have said a few things. They have said that in a situation like this, call the airport doctor. And yes, we have put that in our SOPs (standard operating procedures) that whenever a situation like this arises, always consult the airport doctor,” the IndiGo CEO told PTI, adding the regulator has also said that the carrier should improve the training of the staff members in terms of sensitivity.
“We already have robust training in place to deal with people with special needs. We are going to do a big case study on this and talk to all our coaches (who train the cabin crew members as well as the ground staff) and see what we can learn. I think what the DGCA has said is that you should try and calm the passenger down,” he added.
Dutta also said that the airline needs to ask itself what can it do about assuring the distressed passenger in situations like the one that developed in Ranchi.
“So, we are doing our own internal case study,” he added.
He said the airline has about 100 of the aforementioned coaches who do this kind of special training of cabin crew members and ground staff.
“We are getting them all together and doing our own case study. This is what happened. This is the outcome. What should have been done differently? How can we be more sensitive in terms of using calming techniques with a customer. So, we are going to look through all of that,” he added.
The regulator said last Saturday (28) said that the handling of the special child by the IndiGo ground staff was deficient and it ended up exacerbating the situation.
A more compassionate handling would have smoothened nerves, calmed the child and obviated the need for the extreme step resulting in the passengers being denied boarding, it said.
[With PTI inputs]
