“We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should have been,” Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran said in a statement, on January 8, 2023. File
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Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran on January 8 said the urinating incident on November 26 aboard an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi has been a “matter of personal anguish to him and his colleagues at Air India”.
“Air India’s response should have been much swifter. We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should have been,” the Tata Sons chairman said in a statement.
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“The Tata Group and Air India stand by the safety and well-being of our passengers and crew with full conviction. We will review and repair every process to prevent or address any incidents of such unruly nature,” the statement added.
Delhi Police arrested Shankar Mishra, 34, from Bengaluru, who allegedly urinated on a woman co-passenger during the flight. He has been sent to judicial remand for 14 days by a Delhi Court which rejected a plea by police for his custody.
On Jan. 7, the airline’s CEO Campbell Wilson had said that four cabin crew and one pilot have been issued show cause notices and de-rostered pending investigations.
Mr. Wilson in a statement said that “the airline “regrets and is pained” by these experiences. “Air India is deeply concerned about the in-flight instances where customers have suffered due to the condemnable acts of their co-passengers on our aircraft,“ he added.
Facing backlash for the handling of the incident, Mr. Wilson also said the airline could have handled the issue better and promised a robust reporting system of unruly behaviour and a system of reporting such incidents.
The airline said that internal investigations into whether there were lapses by other staff are ongoing on aspects including the service of alcohol on flight, incident handling, complaint registration onboard and grievance handling.