Patna, Jan 09, 2023: Two drunk passengers on a Delhi-Patna IndiGo flight were arrested by the Patna Airport Police with help of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on Sunday evening for consuming alcohol on a domestic flight, which is prohibited. Sources said there was no ruckus onboard, and they stopped and apologised when a crew member intervened.
According to protocol, the airline informed the Air Traffic Controller, and they were arrested on arrival, sources said.
Both the passengers were already drunk when they boarded the flight from Delhi, and tried to continue drinking in the 80-minutes-long flight.
The CISF took them into custody and later handed them over to the airport police.
Sources at the civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said that a passenger informed the crew that some people were drinking beer inside the flight. They were a group of six people. The pilot was informed when the crew interv
ened and saw empty cans in the seat pockets. Two passengers confessed and were handed over to the security along with relevant documentation, they added.
This comes days after the arrest of Shankar Mishra, the Mumbai man who urinated on a woman on an Air India New York-Delhi flight while drunk last month, created a huge uproar over the six-week delay in action against him. Social media users expressed shock and disgust at the handling of the incident by the airline. Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran later admitted that Air India’s response should have been swifter. "We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should have been," Mr Chandrasekaran said in a statement on Sunday.
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson had also apologised and said four cabin crew and a pilot were de-rostered, and the airline is reviewing its "policy on service of alcohol in flight".