Air India is formulating new rules which could see an unruly passenger being asked to pay anything between ₹5-to-₹15 lakh for delaying a flight.

The airline’s legal department is whetting a proposal on whether Air India can seek compensation of ₹ 5 lakh from an unruly passenger who delays a flight by up to an hour. The penalty will increase to ₹15 lakh if the delay is for more than two hours.

The fine amount is structured on the cost incurred by Air India due to the delays it suffers in its operations.

However, it is likely that the proposal might not see the light of day. Pradeep Rai, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, told BusinessLine that the airline will have to initially “establish that there has been no service deficiency on its part.”

Rai cautions the airline that it should not spend ₹ 50 lakh or more in lawyers’ fees while trying to recover ₹5 lakh from an unruly passenger.

Government sources also indicated that there was no “legal backing” for what is being planned by the state-owned airline. However, the thinking in the airline is that if hotels on the roadside can have boards saying ‘Right of Admission Reserved,’ the airline must have a procedure for handling unruly passengers.

The move comes in the wake of some Members of Parliament including Dola Sen from the Trinamool Congress delaying a Delhi to Kolkata flight by about 40 minutes as her mother who was in a wheel chair was not allowed to sit in the emergency exit seat.

A few days before the Dola incident, Member of Parliament Ravinder Gaikwad from the Shiv Sena delayed an Air India flight by 90 minutes at Delhi airport and assaulted an airline staffer as he was not given a seat in business class. The delay led to consequential delays for other flights.

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