Air India’s response should have been swifter: Tata Group

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 8

Air India’s response to the incident of a drunk passenger urinating on a woman on one of its international flights last year should have been “much swifter”, Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Sunday.

In a statement, which came days after aviation regulator DGCA pulled up the Tata Group-owned full-service carrier, Chandrasekaran said, “We fell short of addressing this situation the way we should have.”

In a shocking incident, dubbed “pee-gate” by the media, an inebriated man urinated on an elderly female co-passenger in the business class of the Air India New York-New Delhi flight on November 26 last year. The accused, Shankar Mishra, was arrested on Saturday. The DGCA has said Air India’s conduct in handling the incident was “unprofessional” and it had issued show-cause notices to the airline, its Director of in-flight services and the crew that operated the flight.

Meanwhile, Dr Sugata Bhattacharjee, US-based doctor who was seated next to Shankar Mishra in the flight, has said, “A drunk person may not be in his senses but the flight crew showed no compassion and failed in their responsibility.” Dr Bhattacharjee had complained to Air India immediately after the flight landed.

“I thought it was my moral obligation to stand and make a complaint and I did,” he added. (With PTI inputs)

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