In November, a drunk person in business class on an Air India flight urinated on a female co-passenger and then fled without being dealt with. Air India has filed a case and requested that the unruly passenger be added to the no-fly list weeks after the occurrence.
The woman wrote to the group chairman of Air India, N Chandrasekaran, revealing the occurrence, and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has requested a report from the carrier.
"We shall take action against those found negligent," said the regulator.
On November 26, the intoxicated traveller allegedly opened a zipper and urinated on a business class passenger in her 70s on an Air India journey from New York to Delhi. After the meal, the lights had been darkened.
The man apparently continued to expose himself after urinating and remained still until another passenger asked him to sit down again.
The woman complained to the staff, saying that her shoes, clothing, and luggage were all covered in urine. She claims that the personnel gave her a set of pyjamas and a pair of slippers and instructed her to go back to her seat because there was nothing else available, NDTV reported.
The guy allegedly went without being held accountable for his outrageous behaviour once the plane touched down in Delhi.
The woman complained to Mr Chandrasekaran the following day about the airline's handling of the situation, calling it the "most traumatic flight I have 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 now filed a police complaint against the man. "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," sources said.
A crew seat was assigned to the woman after she reportedly indicated that she didn't want to sit on the dirty seat. She claims that the crew instructed her to go back to her seat after an hour, even though it still reeked of urine but was covered with blankets. She was offered another staff seat, where she spent the entire five hours of the flight, after adamantly refusing to sit in the same one.
"I subsequently learned from a fellow passenger that several seats were available in First Class and he suggested to the crew that I be moved into one of those rather than being forced to sit in a soiled seat. Clearly, the crew did not feel that taking care of a distressed passenger was a priority. At the end of the flight, the staff told me they would get me a wheelchair to ensure that I clear customs as early as possible. However, the wheelchair deposited me at a waiting area, where I waited for 30 minutes, and nobody came to get me. I finally had to clear customs on my own and collected the luggage by myself - all in Air India pyjamas and socks," the woman wrote, calling the Air India crew deeply unprofessional.
After a similar incident involving a drunk man peeing on a female passenger's seat on a New York-Delhi aircraft in August 2018, Air India strongly condemned the behaviour and quickly apologised.
This is the most recent example of disruptive behaviour on a flight.
On December 26, a number of passengers beat a fellow traveller on a Thai Smile flight from Bangkok to Kolkata after he refused to adjust his seat before takeoff. A video of a fight on an IndiGo flight on December 16 surfaced online, in which a stewardess is heard telling the passenger, "I am not your servant."