Why Indian airlines are bad at handling drunk, unruly passengers

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Editor's note: American writer William Cuthbert Faulkner once said, “War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.” Now imagine if you are served free drinks on a flight. While it’s a great experience for the amount you’ve paid to travel, it may not always go well. As two recent incidents aboard Air India flights show. On 26 November, a passenger named Shankar Mishra urinated on an elderly woman, allegedly in an inebriated condition, in the business class cabin of a New York-Delhi flight. On 4 January, the Delhi police filed an FIR against Mishra on the victim’s complaint, following which he was arrested and the airline imposed a 30-day ban on him, extending it to another four months on Thursday.  Yesterday, the Director General of Civil Aviation fined Air India Rs 30 lakh and suspended the licence of the pilot of the said flight for three months.  Similarly, on 6 December, a drunk male passenger allegedly urinated on a female passenger’s blanket on a Paris-Delhi flight. Even though the man was apprehended by the Central Industrial …