London-bound Air India flight turns back to Delhi after passenger ‘hits cabin crew member’

A passenger reportedly caused “physical harm” to two cabin crew members on a London-bound Air India flight on Monday, forcing the captains to return to New Delhi and hand over the man to the police.

The Air India flight AI111 – scheduled to leave for London’s Heathrow Airport from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi international airport – returned to terminal three (T3) in Delhi after the passenger started behaving in an unruly manner within 15 minutes of takeoff, it was reported.

The passenger reportedly hit a cabin crew member and pulled their hair, according to the Hindustan Times.

Air India said that the London-bound flight returned to Delhi “shortly after departure due to the serious unruly behaviour of a passenger on board”.

It added that the passenger did not heed the “verbal and written warnings” and instead “continued with unruly behaviour including causing physical harm to two of the cabin crew members”.

The pilot in command decided to return to Delhi and the passenger was handed over to the security personnel upon landing, the statement said.

The flight initially took off from New Delhi at 6.35am and reports said that the passenger started creating trouble within 15 minutes of take off.

A police complaint has been filed against the man, whose identity was not revealed by the authorities.

“Safety, security and dignity of all on board is important to us at Air India,” the carrier said.

“We are providing all possible support to the affected crew members. We regret the inconvenience caused to the passengers and have rescheduled the flight to depart for London this afternoon.”

The Air India plane was carrying around 225 passengers on board.

In January this year, Air India issued show cause notices to four cabin crew members and one pilot over the handling of an unruly passenger who urinated on an elderly woman while drunk on an international flight.

The Tata group-owned airline also grounded the staff, after facing widespread backlash following an incident on a flight from New York to Delhi, when a passenger, identified as Shankar Mishra, urinated on a female co-passenger.

The airline had earlier banned the man for 30 days, with social media users slamming it as not enough. A second similar incident occurred last month on a flight from Paris to Delhi when an inebriated passenger urinated on an empty seat.

“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,” company chief executive officer Campbell Wilson said at the time.

India’s aviation regulator also imposed a fine of £30,000 on Air India and suspended the pilot in command.

In a separate incident, a busload of more than 50 passengers was left behind as the flight they were supposed to be on left the airport without them onboard.

In yet another bizarre incident on 24 January this year, passengers onboard an Indigo flight from Nagpur to Mumbai were shocked when one traveller attempted to remove the emergency exit cover mid-flight.

The Airbus A321neo was still airborne and on the approach for landing when the passenger in question tried to tamper with the cover.

The service from Bengaluru to Delhi, operated by Indian airline Go First, was due to depart at 6.20am on 9 January. But passengers reported on social media that, despite arriving on time for flight G8 116, they were left behind.

Earlier in February, an army personnel in India was booked for making a hoax bomb call to the police after he missed his second flight for the day.

Ajmeer Bhadraiah, 59, was to board an Indigo flight from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad that was on its way to Chennai. He was, however, denied entry for arriving late.