- Wednesday, March 05, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Air India has banned a passenger who urinated on a woman co-passenger on board a New York-Delhi flight in November last year, NDTV reported.
The shocking incident happened when the accused, who was inebriated, relieved himself on the 70-year-old woman in the business class of the flight and left without facing any consequence.
Air India filed a case and recommended that the accused man be placed on the no-fly list.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, which regulates India’s aviation sector, sought a report from the carrier about the incident which came to light only after the woman wrote to N Chandrasekaran, Air India’s group chairman.
“We shall take action against those found negligent,” the regulator said.
It has been reported that on November 26, the passenger allegedly unzipped and urinated on the elderly co-passenger. It happened when the lights were dimmed after a meal.
The man did not stop after urinating and allegedly kept exposing himself until another passenger asked him to return to his seat.
It was reported that the woman complained to the crew and told them that her clothes, shoes, and bag were soaked in the man’s urine. She was given a set of clothes and slippers but was asked to return to her seat as no other seat was available.
The accused passenger allegedly left after the flight reached Delhi without facing any consequence.
The woman, who was disappointed with the airline’s handling of the case, penned a letter to Chandrasekaran the very next day describing her ordeal and called it the “most traumatic flight” she had ever experienced.
“I am writing to express my deep disappointment regarding the appalling incident that occurred during my business class trip on flight AI102 (commencing in NY, JFK yesterday 26th November at 12.30 pm, and arriving this afternoon in New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport at approximately 1.30 pm).
“This has been the most traumatic flight that I have ever experienced. During the course of the flight, shortly after lunch was served and the lights were switched off, I was getting ready to sleep, and another passenger walked to my seat completely inebriated. He unzipped his pants, relieved himself, and continued to expose me to his private parts. The passenger sitting next to me asked him to return to his seat. He did not respond immediately, but after a few moments left the area,” she said in the letter.
Air India has filed a police complaint against the man, NDTV reported citing sources.
“Air India constituted an internal committee and recommended to put the male passenger on the ‘no-fly list’. The matter is under a government committee and a decision is awaited,” the sources said.
The woman reportedly wrote that she was against sitting on the same seat which was reeking of urine. She was given a crew seat in the beginning but was reportedly told by the crew to return to her seat and after firmly refusing to do so, she was given another crew seat where she sat for five hours till the plane landed in Delhi.
In September 2018, Air India strongly condemned an incident where a drunk man urinated on the seat of a woman passenger on a New York-Delhi flight and apologised promptly.
Last month, a group of passengers beat up a co-passenger on a flight from Bangkok to Kolkata after he refused to make his seat upright before takeoff.
In another incident in the same month, an IndiGo flight stewardess was seen getting into an argument with a passenger who allegedly misbehaved with the crew and yelled at him saying, “I am not your servant.”
