Indian Airliner Has Passenger Removed for Trying to Charge Phone Inside Cockpit

The 35-year-old Indian citizen was taken to a police station but was later let go after the authorities questioned him. He was drunk and wanted to charge his mobile phone so he attempted to enter the cockpit.

New Delhi (Sputnik) — In a bizarre incident, a passenger aboard a domestic flight in India had to be offloaded after he tried to enter the cockpit "to charge his mobile phone."

The incident occurred aboard a Mumbai-Kolkata IndiGo flight on Monday. Confirming the incident, the airline said in a statement that the "unruly passenger" was drunk and was handed over to the airport police for further action. 

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"Following standard operating procedures the captain operating 6E-395 flight from Mumbai to Kolkata (24 September 2018) had initiated the offloading of the passenger on grounds of the security violation," the IndiGo spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that the aircraft was on the ground when the incident happened. 

A passenger was offloaded from an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Kolkata yesterday after he tried to open the flight's cockpit to charge his phone. He was later handed over to Mumbai police. Investigation underway.

— ANI (@ANI) September 25, 2018

The incident is the latest in a string of violations of airline protocol involving passengers as well as crew members in India. 

An analyst attributes the incidents to the sudden increase of flyers in India, amid falling ticket prices and a lack of passenger etiquette. 

"More than 90 million domestic tickets were issued this year before August and there was a more than 20 percent increase in passengers. Most of them are first time flyers but there are no customer awareness programs. The stress of the airline is more about increasing its customer base. Such incidents are bound to happen. The increasing pressure on the pilots and crew to accommodate extra traffic despite the limited resources should be an added reason," Amitabh Chowdhary, an aviation journalist based in Delhi told Sputnik.

In a similar incident that occurred on the same day, a passenger on board a GoAir flight from Delhi to Patna attempted to open the rear door of the aircraft mid-air. The crew intercepted and took control of the person after a co-passenger sounded the alarm. The passenger was also handed over to the security agencies.

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Last week, around 30 passengers had to be hospitalized with bleeding noses and headaches after the crew of a flight from Jaipur forgot to maintain air pressure in the cabin after the flight took off. 

Early this year, Jet Airways in India had to suspend two pilots for five years after a male pilot slapped his female co-pilot during a flight to Mumbai. Another bizarre incident that forced an emergency landing of a Qatar Airways flight in Chennai airport occurred when a scuffle broke out between a husband and a wife after the latter read the former's phone call details.