Air India 'pee-gate': Air India CEO says 4 cabin crew, one pilot issued show cause notice

Tata-owned Air India CEO Campbell Wilson on Saturday said that the airline has issued a show-cause notice to four cabin crew and a pilot in the case where a passenger urinated on a fellow elderly woman on a flight from New York in November. Wilson, while apologising for the unfortunate event, said the 5 employees have been de-rostered for further investigation. The airline said that it is also reviewing its policy of serving alcohol on flights.

In a statement, Wilson, who is also the managing director of Air India, said Air India is deeply concerned about the in-flight instances where customers have suffered due to the condemnable acts of their co-passengers on our aircraft AI102 operating between New York and Delhi on 26 November 2022.

"Four cabin crew and one pilot have been issued show cause notices and de-rostered pending investigation. Internal investigations into whether there were lapses by other staff are ongoing on aspects including the service of alcohol on the flight, incident handling, complaint registration on board, and grievance handling," said Air India CEO Campbell Wilson in the statement.

After a facing major backslash on the urination case, which took place in November 2022, the airline said it has initiated various steps in a bid to strengthen and improve how such incidents would be addressed in the future.

The CEO, in Saturday's statement, said that they are reviewing the meeting frequency of the DGCA-prescribed 'Internal Committee', tasked with assessing incidents so that cases are assessed and decisions reached in a more timely manner.

"To improve the robustness of its legacy incident reporting processes, which are presently paper-based and manual, Air India signed a Letter of Intent in December 2022 to acquire a license for the market-leading provider of incident management software, Coruson," Wilson said. He added the airline is also in the process of deploying iPads to Pilots and Senior Cabin Crew. "When used together, the crew will be able to enter voyage and incident reports electronically, which will then be rapidly and automatically routed to relevant parties including, as required, the Regulator," he further added.

The accused Shankar Mishra was arrested from Bengaluru late on Friday by the Delhi Police. He was reportedly on the run, and the police had issued a lookout notice to trace him.

Mishra was booked under Indian Penal Code sections 294 (obscene act in public place), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 510 (misconduct in public by a drunken person) as well as under Aircraft Rules.

Mishra, who was on a New York-Delhi Air India flight on November 26, allegedly unzipped his pants and urinated on an elderly woman in business class. He later said that he had apologised to the woman and begged her not to report the case to the police, saying it would impact his wife and child. 

Earlier this week, Air India filed a police complaint and said as there was "no further flare-up or confrontation", and "respecting the perceived wishes of the female passenger", the crew elected not to summon law enforcement upon landing. Mishra was banned from flying for 30 days, but it triggered outrage on social media, where users said it was not enough. 

Air India has faced criticism, including from the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), over its handling of the incident in November. The DGCA issued show-cause notices to Air India officials and cabin crew of the New York-Delhi flight and asked why action should not be taken against them for "dereliction" of duty while handling the November 26 'pee-gate' incident.

The aviation regulator added that Air India's conduct appeared to be "unprofessional", and that prima facie, it seemed that provisions related to the handling of unruly passengers were not complied with.