Comments
Unruly air travellers getting away lightly could soon be a thing of the past.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is organising an international conference on Air Law in March 2014, where it will look into certain loopholes in the existing laws, which allow unruly passengers to continue with their errant ways.
Currently, the 1963 Tokyo Convention, which was largely the outcome of concerns over the growing number of hijackings, governs unruly passengers, who are described as passengers who fail to respect the rules of conduct on board an aircraft or do not follow the instructions of crew members and thereby disturb the good order and discipline onboard an aircraft.
Tokyo Convention The Tokyo Convention is seen to be weak on two major issues — jurisdiction and immunity standards, which allow most unruly passengers to get away scot free. The conference proposes to bridge this gap.
Officials in the Ministry of Civil Aviation told Business Line that India will support the changes being planned.
Meanwhile, International Air Transport Association (IATA) officials indicated that it could be five to six years before the revisions proposed to the Tokyo Convention come into effect. This is because the changes have to be ratified by over 100 ICAO member countries. These countries have then to get their domestic laws changed to implement the amendments. However, officials feel ratification of the Tokyo Convention will send a strong signal to such passengers.
Data collected by IATA show that between 2008 and 2011, over 15,000 unruly passengers flew the world’s skies. Apart from threatening the safety of aircraft, passengers and crew, the cost of unscheduled landing to disembark unruly passengers is usually borne by the airline and can range between $10,000 and $2,00,000.
Passengers turn unruly for a variety of reasons. These include excessive alcohol intake, nicotine starvation due to restriction on smoking, flying phobia and travelling in a crowded environment for an extended period of time.
(The writer is in Geneva at the invitation of IATA)
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.