No-fly rules

Unruly incidents on flights have fallen significantly, after the implementation of rules under the national no-fly list, according to Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha. So far, only one person has been put on the no-fly list and barred from flying for five years by Jet Airways after he left a hijack message in the lavatory of a flight from Mumbai to Delhi last October.

The Minister informed Parliament last July, over a period of 18 months since 2016 there had been 455 cases of unruly passengers on various Indian airlines. But once the list was issued, the number of violations has dropped significantly, said Sinha.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation 8th September 2017, unveiled rules to tackle on-board disruptive and unruly behaviour by passengers, in accordance with the provisions of Tokyo Convention 1963.
The revised CAR deals with unruly behavior of passenger on-board aircraft. Unruly behavior of passengers at airport premises will be dealt with by relevant security agencies under applicable penal provisions.

The revised CAR defines three categories of unruly behavior - Level 1 refers to behaviour that is verbally unruly, and calls for debarment up to 3 months; Level 2 indicates physical unruliness and can lead to the passenger being debarred from flying for up to 6 months and Level 3 indicates life-threatening behaviour where the debarment would be for a minimum of 2 years.

The complaint of unruly behavior would need to be filed by the pilot-in-command. These complaints will be probed by an internal committee to be set up by the airline. During the period of pendency of the enquiry the concerned airline may impose a ban on the said passenger. For every subsequent offence, the ban will be twice the period of previous ban.

The airlines will be required to share the No-Fly list, and the same will be available on DGCA website. The other airlines will not be bound by the No-Fly list of an airline. The revised CAR also contains appeal provisions against the ban. Aggrieved persons (other than those identified as security threat by MHA) may appeal within 60 days from the date of issue of order to the Appellate Committee constituted by MoCA. The decision of the Committee is final.