DGCA fines Go First Rs 10L for leaving behind 55 passengers in Bengaluru airport

The country's civil aviation regulator on Friday slapped a penalty of Rs 10 lakh on Go First airline for leaving behind 55 passengers in a coach at Bengaluru airport after finding inadequacies in its operations.

The action against Go First comes days after the DGCA imposed penalties on Air India twice -- for Rs 30 lakh and Rs 10 lakh -- for not handling incidents of passenger misbehaviour on flights.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) took the action after examining the response submitted by the airline on January 25 to a show cause notice issued to its Accountable Manager on January 10.

The DGCA said the perusal of the airline's response showed that there was "improper communication, coordination between terminal coordinator (TC), commercial staff and crew" regarding the boarding of passengers in its Bengaluru-Delhi flight on January 9.

"The airline failed to ensure adequate arrangement for ground handling, preparation of load and trim sheet, flight dispatch and passenger/cargo handling and therefore, enforcement action in the form of Financial Penalty of Rs 10,00,000/- (Rupees Ten Lakh only) has been imposed for violation of CAR Section 3, Series C, Part II and of Air Transport Circular 02 of 2019," a DGCA statement said.

Go First had earlier issued an apology and derostered all staff involved in the incident while saying that it was an "inadvertent oversight" in the reconciliation of the flight that led to the incident.

Issuing the show cause notice on January 10, the DGCA had said the airline had committed "multiple mistakes" leading to the incident. "In the instant case, multiple mistakes such as lack of proper communication, coordination, reconciliation and confirmation have resulted in a highly avoidable situation," the DGCA had then said. (ENDS)