The schedule of flight on a particular route will be suspended for a period of two weeks if anyone is found doing photography inside it. It will be restored only after the airline has taken action against those violating these norms.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Saturday announced this after taking a strong note of alleged violation of safety and social distancing protocols by mediapersons during a Chandigarh-Mumbai flight that had Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut as a passenger. The order was sent to all the domestic airlines in India.
The DGCA order on Saturday said, “It has been decided that from now on, in case any violation (photography) occurs on any scheduled passenger aircraft — the schedule of flight for that particular route shall be suspended for a period of two weeks.â€
This announcement comes a day after the DGCA asked IndiGo to take “appropriate action†within 15 days against those who violated air safety norms in the Kangana flight.
The airline will be taking action against reporters and camera persons who were present in the flights.
The order stated that as per Rule 13 of the Aircraft Rules 1937, no person is allowed to take any photographs inside a flight except when permission is granted by the DGCA or the Civil Aviation Ministry. “In spite of these regulations, it has been noted that at times, the airlines have failed to follow these stipulations primarily because of lack of diligence on their part,†the order noted.
“Needless to say that such deviations result in a compromise in maintaining the highest standards of safety and therefore is not to be allowed,†it mentioned. Therefore, the order said if any incident of photography takes place inside any flight, that scheduled flight will be suspended for a period of two weeks and it will be “restored only after the airline has taken all the necessary punitive action against those responsible for the violationâ€. As per the DGCA rules, an airline can put an “unruly passenger†on its “no-fly list†for a certain period of time after an internal enquiry.
According to a video of the incident that took place inside Wednesday’s flight, reporters and cameramen were jostling and bunching up to get a comment from Kangana, who was sitting in one of the front rows of the plane.
