The airline has said it is investigating the incident, which occurred on a flight Friday from New York to Delhi.
New Delhi: Air India is under fire on social media over reports that a drunk passenger urinated on an elderly woman’s seat midflight, but was let off without reprimand or punishment.
The incident reportedly took place Friday on flight AI102 from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, from where the elderly woman was to take a connecting flight. She was travelling alone.
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The woman’s daughter, Indrani Ghosh, lashed out at India’s flag carrier in a series of Twitter posts, saying it was disgraceful that her mother faced “trauma” at the hands of a drunk passenger but the airline did not even take action.
She wrote: “30thAug AI102 JFK to Delhi, seat 36D. My mother traveling alone in AI flight had to face extreme shock and trauma when a drunk passenger post dinner service fumbled across to her seat, removed his pants and urinated on her seat! Please look into urgently (sic).”
“The details of the incident are extremely disturbing. One necessarily doesn’t prepare oneself to face such things,” she added.
“This was an afternoon flight and the incident happened post dinner (ample time to get drunk). What is AI’s response? What is happening? #nationalAirline #AirIndia,” she wrote.
Ghosh said the only thing the airline did in response was offer her mother another seat. At the Delhi airport, she added, her mother, waiting in her wheelchair, saw “the drunk passenger walk away”.
She added that when she tried to call the customer care number, she was asked to fill a feedback form.
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Replying to her post, Air India tweeted that they were forwarding the issue to all concerned departments and also calling for a report from the cabin crew.
“The matter is under investigation and the cabin crew will give us the report of what exactly had happened in the flight,” Air India spokesperson Praveen Bhatnagar said.