Supreme Court judge Viswanathan shares awful flight experience

New Delhi: Supreme Court judge Justice K V Viswanathan on Tuesday said he and another SC judge Justice Surya Kant recently witnessed an unpleasant experience on a flight that also had two drunk co-passengers.

Justice Viswanathan narrated the event during a hearing on a plea seeking measures to deal with unruly flyers. “We had a recent experience during air travel. Two male passengers were fully drunk. One went to the washroom and slept off. The other one, who was outside and had a bag to vomit.

The crew was all women. For 30 to 35 minutes no one could open the door.

The crew then requested my co-passenger to open the door and take him out to the seat. It was a 2.40 hours flight,” he said. Justice Viswanathan, who was on a bench with Justice B R Gavai, told Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati that authorities should find a “creative” solution to address the issue of unruly air passengers and a strategic seating plan for flyers was required to be put in place.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Centre and aviation regulator DGCA to frame more comprehensive guidelines to control unruly air passengers and observed “something creative” had to be done.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan was hearing a plea filed by a 73-year-old woman, on whom a male co-passenger allegedly urinated in an inebriated condition on board an Air India flight in November, 2022.

The septuagenarian sought directions to the Centre, the DGCA and all the air carriers to frame a standard operating procedure (SOP) to deal with similar incidents.

The bench, hearing the plea, asked Aishwarya Bhati to instruct the authorities concerned to examine and suitably modify the existing guidelines on unruly passengers, in line with the international norms.

During the hearing, the woman’s counsel submitted the DGCA filed a reply stating everything was in place but the petitioner had suggestions that could be incorporated. Bhati, representing the Centre, informed the bench that an affidavit was filed and guidelines and circulars were notified for controlling unruly passengers. The woman filed a PIL in March, 2023, saying she was constrained to move the top court as Air India and the DGCA failed to treat her with care and responsibility after the unpleasant experience.

The woman referred to seven instances of passenger misconduct on board between 2014 and 2023, alleging they were not dealt with properly by the airline concerned.