Air India Proposes Hefty Fines For Unruly Passengers 

National passenger carrier Air India has formulated new guidelines to deal with unruly passengers with hefty fines up to Rs 15 lakh proposed.

According to AI sources, a new set of guidelines and fines have been drafted by the airline's legal team which is awaiting approval from Air India's Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani's office. The draft guidelines envisage arming Air India's airport managers with more powers to deal directly with unruly passengers, while hefty fines of up to Rs 15 lakh have also been proposed to be levied on passengers who delay flight operations.

"Recent incidents of unruly behaviour and assault on AI employees by passengers (whether VIP or otherwise) have caused severe damage to the morale of the employees besides negative publicity to Air India," an airlines source said. "Even a hotel on the roadside has a board 'Right of Admission Reserved'. Air India, therefore, must have a procedure for handling such unruly passengers...."

The new guidelines detailed a fresh fine structure through which an unruly passenger can be fined Rs 5 lakh for delaying a flight by an hour, Rs 10 lakh for delay beyond an hour and Rs 15 lakh for delay beyond two hours.