Air India 'pee-gate' case: Top bosses knew about urinating incident after flight landed, emails show

Within hours of the flight's touchdown in the national capital, a crew member on the November 26 flight from New York to New Delhi alerted senior airline officials, including CEO Campbell Wilson, about the incident of a drunk passenger peeing on a female co-passenger.

According to e-mails obtained by ANI, the Air India cabin crew supervisor informed the head of the Inflight Service Department (IFSD), base operations in India, the Lead HR head of IFSD, and the head of the northern region of IFSD and of complaints (customer care) about the incident on November 27 at around 1 p.m.

The top management at Air India previously asserted that because they were unaware of the incident until after the flight had landed, Shankar Mishra, the accused, was allowed to leave without being apprehended or facing any consequences.

A passenger on board Flight AI-102 is alleged to have urinated on a female passenger, which was reported to airline officials shortly after landing. According to Air India Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Campbell Wilson, the airline has formed an internal committee to investigate crew failures and address the deficiencies that delayed prompt redress of the situation.

A reply of "Ok, Noted" was also sent to the email containing the "brief summary" of the incident at 3.47 p.m.

One of the first emails sent after the phone calls, which ANI obtained, was sent at 3:46 p.m. and was also read and acknowledged by the recipients.

At 7.46 p.m. the same day, a detailed chain of emails was sent to the head of the ground handling department, as well as the heads of customer service and in-flight services.

Additionally, communications reveal that Wilson, who on the same evening received an email from the woman passenger's son-in-law, forwarded the email to the head of customer care, drawing attention to the email he had received.

On November 26, 2022, a man named Shankar Mishra allegedly urinated on a 70-year-old woman co-passenger in an inebriated state in business class of an Air India flight.  The incident was not reported to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which was attributed to the airline crew's delay in doing so.

Show-cause letters were sent to the entire flight crew as well as the airline and its executives.

According to one of the crew's responses to the DGCA, cabin supervisor-1 called Mahipal Antil, the lead HR head of IFSD, and Neeta Khungar, the base manager in Delhi.

This crew's statement read, "upon landing, when the cabin supervisor- 1 called Antil to understand the way forward to treat the matter, he stated that it was not an incident of "unruly passenger" and that the Captain was correct in not upgrading the passenger to First class."

In one of the responses, it was also mentioned that the alleged offender (8C) was dozing off when two cabin crew approached him to ask about the incident. "...he had no recollection of the incident and was completely lost. He said he does not remember anything but was ready to apologise to the lady unconditionally," the mail read.

As per the email trail, "He (S Mishra) claimed that he had a two-year-old daughter and the lady was like his mother and he could not think of doing anything like this. Later, the two passengers met near the R2 door (second door to the right) and discussed matters amongst themselves and reached their own financial compromise. Commander was informed of these developments of the passengers' own mutual compromise and all developments from time to time as per protocol."

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation took note of the situation and fined the airline Rs 30 lakh. The licence of the flight's pilot-in-command has also been suspended for a period of three months by the aviation regulatory body.

In accordance with Rule 141 of the 1937 Aircraft Rules and any applicable DGCA Civil Aviation Requirements, the Pilot-In-license Command has been suspended for a period of three months, according to the DGCA's statement. Additionally, the Director-in-Flight Services was fined Rs 3,00,000 by the DGCA.

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Also Read: 'Acknowledge gaps in reporting': Air India responds to DGCA action in urination case

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