Air India peeing incident: Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran on Sunday said that the incident has been a matter of personal anguish to him and his colleagues adding they fell short of addressing this situation the way it should've been.
"Incident on Air India flight AI102 on 26 Nov 2022, has been a matter of personal anguish to me & my colleagues at Air India. Air India’s response should've been much swifter. We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should've been," said N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons.
"The Tata Group and Air India stand by the safety and well-being of our passengers and crew with full conviction. We will review and repair every process to prevent or address any incidents of such unruly nature," N Chandrasekaran said.
In a shocking incident, an inebriated man allegedly urinated on a female co-passenger, a senior citizen in her seventies, in the business class of Air India New York-New Delhi flight on November 26 last year.
The accused Shankar Mishra was arrested by the Delhi Police from Bengaluru on Saturday.
DGCA has said Air India's conduct in handling the incident was "unprofessional". It has issued show cause notices to the airline, its director of in-flight services and the crew that operated the flight.
The incident came to light reportedly after the woman wrote a letter to Chandrasekaran recalling her harrowing experience on the flight.
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson on Saturday apologised for the incident and said four cabin crew and a pilot have been de-rostered and the airline is reviewing its "policy on service of alcohol in flight".
Earlier, Wilson, in an internal communication, told the airline staff to report any improper behaviour on aircraft to authorities at the earliest even if the matter appears to have been settled.
Wilson wrote the communication to employees after aviation safety regulator DGCA slammed the Tata Group airline, saying that its conduct was "unprofessional" and led to the "systematic failure" on the New York-Delhi flight incident, which it did nor report to the DGCA.
The Delhi Police registered an FIR against Mishra on January 4 on a complaint given by the woman to Air India. After his arrest, he was brought to Delhi.
Mishra, who was working with US multinational firm Wells Fargo in India, was sacked on Friday. He studied management at a private university in Mumbai and completed his higher studies in the United States.
According to the FIR, shortly after lunch was served and the lights were switched off onboard AI 102 on November 26, 2022, the inebriated male passenger seated in business class seat 8A walked to the elderly woman's seat, unzipped his pants and urinated on her.
According to the FIR, the accused later begged the woman not to lodge a complaint against him, saying he was a family man and did not wish his wife and child to be affected by the incident.
The airline had on Wednesday said it had imposed a 30-day flying ban on the accused passenger and set up an internal panel to probe whether there were lapses on part of the crew in addressing the situation.
Don't make captain, crew scapegoat in urinating incidence, say veteran pilots to Air India
A section of serving and retired pilots have strongly criticised the de-rostering of the captain and the crew of a New York-Delhi flight in which a male flier urinated on a female co-passenger in a drunken state.
On Saturday, Air India’s CEO and Managing Director Campbell Wilson issued a statement in which he said that four cabin crew and one pilot have been issued show cause notices and de-rostered pending investigation.
Wilson, in his statement, hasn’t specified any reason for taking action against all five of them.
In fact, his statement further shows that the airline was aware of the incident just a day after it took place on November 26 as he wrote, “Upon receipt of the complaint on November 27, Air India acknowledged receipt and commenced engaging in correspondence with the affected passenger’s family on November 30".
(With inputs from PTI)
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