NEW DELHI: A 29-year-old flyer was arrested on Monday after he was offloaded from a SpiceJet flight at IGI Airport and handed over to security agencies for allegedly touching a foreign woman cabin crew member in an inappropriate manner. Delhi Police has registered an FIR under IPC Section 354A (sexual harassment) against Absar Alam, a resident of southeast Delhi’s Jamia Nagar. This most recent case of unruly behaviour happened on a wet lease aircraft — plane is taken on hire with operating crew — that was to fly from Delhi to Hyderabad. “The cabin crew member started crying. The passenger was offloaded and handed over to IGI airport police station. Another person was travelling with him and he also got off the aircraft,” said people in the know. The airline has informed Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) about the incident.Delhi Police said that as per the security officer of the airline, the woman was closing the overhead bin when the passenger’s elbow touched her thighs. The accused were going to Hyderabad on work with six others, including two women. The passenger is learnt to have submitted a written apology to police.A SpiceJet spokesperson said, “On Monday, SpiceJet wet-leased Corendon aircraft was scheduled to operate SG-8133 (Delhi-Hyderabad). During boarding at Delhi, one passenger behaved in an unruly and inappropriate manner, harassing and causing disturbance to a cabin crew member. The crew informed the pilot-in-command and security staff of the same. The said passenger and a co-passenger, who were travelling together, were offloaded and handed over to the security team.” Comments were sought from the airline on whether it will initiate proceedings against the passenger under the no-fly rules and awaited till the time of going to press.The wet lease aircraft from Turkish carrier Corendon has all but one foreign crew. As per rules, there has to be an Indian crew member who can translate between passengers and the other foreign crew as and when needed.The past few months have seen a number of unruly incidents on board flights of both Indian and foreign carriers headed to India. These include flyers allegedly urinating on co-passengers or the latter’s seats and onboard brawls. DGCA has recently fined a leading Indian airline Rs 30 lakh for not reporting one such incident to it on time and also suspended the licence of the pilot-in-command of that flightfor three months. Following this action, airlines are immediately reporting any such incident to DGCA and the crew also hand over the unruly passenger to security agencies.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/29-year-old-spicejet-flyer-arrested-for-misbehaving-with-foreign-cabin-crew/articleshow/97260930.cms