No-fly list mechanism in place: Unruly passengers face minimum 2 months ban, maximum 2 years

The aviation ministry today released the guidelines to prepare a no-fly list in order to ensure safety and check unruly and disruptive behaviour on aircraft.

As per the guidelines, ban on passengers is on three levels. Level 1 is unruly physical gestures, verbal harassment and unruly inebriation. Such behaviour will result in ban up to three months.

The second level is physically abusive behaviour such as pushing, kicking, hitting and inappropriate touching. These will attract ban up to six months.

The third level is life threatening behaviour, which includes assaults, damage to aircraft systems. In such cases the ban will be for minimum two years.

“Decision will be taken by an independent committee under a retired District Judge within a period of 30 days of alleged offence,” civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said in a tweet.

“The No-Fly ban will be in addition to any statutory legal action that can be taken against the offender under existing laws,” he said.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said while devising the no-fly mechanism the government has given prominence to safety.

“No other regulator in the world has based its no-fly list on safety,” he told reporters.

The draft rules released in May had proposed a minimum ban of three months on unruly passengers while the maximum was indefinite.

The move national no-fly list mechanism follows an incident involving Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad who hit an Air India staffer “25 times” with a slipper for not being allowed to fly business class in an all-economy plane earlier this year.