Air India to impose heavy fines on passengers delaying flights

In an attempt to put a cap on the increasing incidents of passengers' misbehaviour on flights, Air India introduced a fine of Rs 5 lakh for a delay of upto 1 hour in the take off of the flights due to any passenger, while on causing a delay for more than an hour, upto 2 hours or 3 hours, will cost the passenger a fine of Rs 15 lakhs.

While, incidents of the airlines denying boarding of passengers doubled in the last one year to a total of 18,242 passengers between April 2016 and February 2017, significantly up from a 10,561 passengers in the previous year till March 2016. Out of all the passengers denied boarding in 2016-17, 80 per cent of the passengers flew Jet Airways and 14 per cent flew Air India.

According to the officials, a passenger can be denied boarding in case of late coming, in case of security issues and also due to flight overbooking. While the companies deny overbooking flights, market insiders admit about the companies overbooking about 5 to 10 per cent seats over the seating capacity of aircrafts.