Air India CEO apologises for urinating incident; crew, pilot de-rostered

Wilson said Air India could have handled the issue better and asked staff to report all incidents of unruly behaviour

Air India on Saturday de-rostered a pilot and four cabin crew in connection with a flyer urinating on a woman passenger on its New York-Delhi flight, as its CEO Campbell Wilson issued an apology.

In a statement, Wilson said Air India could have handled the issue better while emphasising that it is "deeply concerned" about the in-flight instances where customers have suffered due to the condemnable acts of their co-passengers on its flights.

"We regret and are pained about these experiences...Air India acknowledges that it could have handled these matters better, both in the air and on the ground and is committed to taking action," he said, while promising to put up a robust reporting system of unruly behaviour.

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"In the instance of the incident onboard AI-102 operating between New York and Delhi on 26 November, 2022, four cabin crew and one pilot have been issued show cause notices and de-rostered pending investigation," he said.

He also asked staff to report all incidents of unruly behaviour, even if the concerned parties have arrived at a compromise.

Internal investigations are on to look into whether there were lapses by other staff and other aspects like service of alcohol on flight, incident handling, complaint registration on board and grievance handling.
The airline is reviewing "policy on service of alcohol in flight," he said.

"To improve the robustness of its legacy incident reporting processes, which are presently paper-based and manual, Air India signed a Letter of Intent in December 2022 to acquire a licence for the market-leading provider of incident management software, Coruson. In addition to this state-of-the-art software, the airline is also in the process of deploying iPads to Pilots and Senior Cabin Crew. When used together, crew will be able to enter voyage and incident reports electronically, which will then be rapidly and automatically routed to relevant parties including, as required, the Regulator," he said.