Managing the Mid-air Mess by Air India

Shankar Mishra, an Indian vice president at Wells Fargo at the time, is accused of peeing on a female passenger and her seat in business class on an Air India aircraft from New York JFK to Delhi on November 26, 2022. Mishra was then charged with displaying his genitalia before being asked to move by other travellers. The female traveller was given clothes, but she was forced to keep sitting on the urine-stained seat and was denied one of the unoccupied first-class seats as compensation. The airline didn’t approach Indian law enforcement until the female traveller and her family complained and launched a lawsuit. After the incident, Mishra escaped to Bengaluru, where he was raised, to avoid being ultimately arrested.

The news came to the notice of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) only on January 4. Mr.Mishra was finally arrested and on January 7, the court had sent Mishra to 14-day judicial custody, which was extended till February 4 on Saturday.

On January 13, Mishra told the court that he is not the accused. In a denial of the accusation made against him in January 2022, Mr. Mishra asserted that the passenger had lost urinary continence and had urinated on herself.

For a number of reasons, the DGCA fined Air India Rs 30 lakh on Friday. It also fined the airline’s director of in-flight services Rs 3 lakh and suspended the pilot-in-license command’s for three months. Regarding the suspension of the pilot-in-command of the flight’s licence by aviation regulator DGCA, the association of Air India pilots, IPG, is exploring legal action as well as other options.

The investigation and the case is still on and we have long way to see the judgement and other outcomes. Since I don’t have first hand information and the matter is in court, I am not going in depth regarding the actions of Mishra and his behaviour. As a business storyteller, I tried to explore more on this and further try to understand the key takeaways from the story.

Before making my comments on the actions and inaction of Air India, let me comment on the phrase “Pee-gate” used by the Indian media. Ever since the Watergate scandal happened in 1972–74, world wide the media starts calling all the scandals and scams with a suffix ‘gate”. But in this case of urination incident in Air India, how is it relevant to call this as “Pee-gate”? To me it is an absolute absurdity!

1. When the victim complained about the incident to the air crew, the air-hostesses, helped her with a new dress and asked her to sit in an alternate seat. But after some time the victim was asked to sit in the original seat where the crew tried to put couple of blankets on the urinated seat. When a co-passenger asked the crew to allot her a special seat, the crew did not heed the request. Lesson learnt — When your customer is really agitated and traumatised, address his/her concerns with real empathy. (Lack of Empathy)
2. Sugata Bhattacharjee, a US-based doctor of audiology in seat 8A (window) in the first row of business class, next to Shankar Mishra in seat 8C, observed the behaviour of the accused and informed the crew members that is his co-passenger is over drunk. But the crew members didn’t respond. Also Mt.Bhattachargee asked the crew to given the General Ledger Book (GLB) to make a complaint. But the crew members could only offer him few blank sheets. Mr.Bhattachargee made a written complaint and handed over it to the crew members, which was not taken seriously. The softcopy of the letter was handed over the daughter of the victim. This may play a crucial evidence against Air India in the further investigations. Lesson Learnt — Never brush aside any artifact of importance. (Complacence).
3. Without knowing the significance of the issue, the crew asked Mr.Mishra to seek an apology to the victim. Since the victim was in traumatised condition, she agreed not to precipitate. But the victim felt that she was shabbily treated by the co-passenger, crew member and Air India and decided to take legal action. It was not the job of the crew to this mediation. They should have made an appropriate complaint to the authorities concerned and allowed the law to take action. Possibly the crew would have got tired after a long flight and decided to close the issue and reach home asap. They would have felt that taking the steps prescribed by the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) may take couple more hours. Lesson Learnt — Understand your roles and responsibilities clearly and never try to cover up serious issues. — (Lack of clarity in R&R)
4. Amid recent incidents of unruly passenger behaviour, Air India has modified its in-flight alcohol service policy wherein cabin crew have been told to tactfully further serving of alcohol if needed. The exact changes in the revised policy could not be immediately ascertained. Lesson Learnt — Air India is able to understand the root cause and traying to address the same. (Causal Analysis and Remedy)
5. Air India admitted that it did not categorise the incident properly in accordance with the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR), the standards that govern the aviation industry. The ground staff and the aircraft crew have reportedly received letters of warning advising them to closely follow the CAR definition of “unruly” when reporting future events. According to them the Mr.Mishra could not be classified as an unruly passenger as he did not indulge in any of the 3 unruly behaviours say 1. Verbal abuse, 2. Physical abuse which would include fisticuffs and 3. Life-threatening behaviour including display of a weapon. It looked like that Air India took the definition light and did not classify the behaviour of Mishra as an unruly one. if the classification of the incident was done as unruly, the responses would have been different. Lesson Learnt — Never look into rules and regulations perse. Apply your mind while addressing critical issues. (Mindfulness)
6. On 30th Jan 2023, Air India said that it would utilise Coruson, an enterprise cloud software programme from UK-based Ideagen, to help improve safety management and make it easier for in-flight issues to be reported in real-time. According to a release from Air India, Coruson, the safety data software tool, would be accessible online as of May 1, 2023, and it will enable real-time reporting of in-flight accidents. Since the incident logging would happen through an electronic device, all the concerned stakeholders can be alerted without any miss. Also the users will not be able to tamper with the logs as all entries would be time-stamped. Lesson Learnt — Minimize or eliminate all manual workflow with the help of digital technologies so that the processes are in place without any omission. (Digital Transformation)