Mid Air Pee-Row: Air India Fined ₹30 Lakh, Pilot Suspended

The incident of a drunk passenger urinating on an elderly woman on an Air India flight turned sensational. After the woman complained to the chairman of Air India, the issue for the attention of DGCA and the aviator watchdog asked the airlines for an explanation.

In a response to the incident, the DGCA directed Air India to pay a fine of ₹30 lakhs and the license of the pilot-in-charge of its New York-Delhi flight has been suspended for three months. Also, a penalty of ₹3 lakhs has been imposed on the director-in-flight services of Air India for failing to discharge her duties.

The airline earlier imposed a four-month flying ban on the passenger Shankar Mishra for the urinating incident on November 26 in 2022. Shankar Mishra walked away after the flight reached India and Air India also did not stop him or file a complaint because it thought they ‘settled the matter’. Shankar Mishra was arrested by the Delhi Police six weeks after the incident.

Shankar Mishra denied all the charges against him and claimed that the woman ‘urinated on herself.’ The woman dismissed the allegations as ‘completely false and concocted and by their very nature are disparaging and derogatory’.