NEW DELHI : Days after a video of passengers having food on Mumbai airport tarmac, and reports of airlines failing to comply with the rostering of pilots for operating flights in low visibility conditions, the Aviation regulators Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) slapped penalties Rs 1.2 crore on IndiGo and Rs 60 lakh on Mumbai airport. While DGCA asked the aiport to pay Rs 30 lakh.
IndiGo and Mumbai airport were asked to pay a fine of Rs 1.2 crore and Rs 90 lakh respectively over the incident where passengers sat on the tarmac and ate food while waiting for their delayed flight. The penalty imposed on IndiGo is the highest amount the airline has had to pay in recent times. The DGCA also slapped fines on Air India and SpiceJet for violating norms concerning rostering of pilots trained to fly during low visibility (CAT III trained). Both airlines were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh by the DGCA.
Penalising IndiGo, BCAS said the airline did not report the incident to it and failed to respond to the emergent situation in a responsible and efficient manner. The regulator also said that IndiGo failed to “ensure security screening of passengers and their cabin baggage before embarkation and protect passengers and their baggage from unlawful interference from the point of screening to boarding of aircraft at Mumbai airport”. Further, it said the airline did not take all security measures required and deploy security staff as per the prescribed scale for the given situation.
The DGCA said the presence of passengers on an “active apron” for a considerable amount of time was against the norms and could have jeopardised the people and the aircraft. The incident involved passengers of an IndiGo flight 6E 2195 from Goa to Delhi.They were already frustrated after their flight got delayed and when it diverted to Mumbai due to fog, the passengers rushed out on the tarmac, the Mumbai Airport had said earlier.
The BCAS said IndiGo allowed passengers from flight 6E 2195 to disembark on the tarmac and have food there while they “intermingled” with others while “making movements to and fro from the adjacent apron control building”.
Earlier, IndiGo and Mumbai Airport had received show cause notices from the Ministry of Civil Aviation over the incident which took place on January 15. As per the notice, IndiGo allowed passengers from flight 6E 2195 to disembark and then allowed to board flight 6E 2091 without screening them. The BCAS further pointed out that IndiGo did not report the incident till the bureau sought it.It said IndiGo’s reply on the incident showed that the airline was aware of the situation even before the flight left Goa and “did not factor in the growing anger amongst the passengers and the time to be taken for arrival of fresh crew”. The airline did not make any request to the airport operator for a contact – stand to ensure better facilitation of the “harassed passengers”, said the BCAS in its notice.The DGCA said the Mumbai Airport failed to maintain discipline in the tarmac area and did not take any action to prevent the movement of passengers there. It added that the Mumbai Airport said it treated the incident as “business as usual” which reflected their “casual approach towards the safety” of passengers.
Amid the row over the video in which passengers of an IndiGo flight are seen eating on the tarmac in Mumbai airport while waiting for take-off, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that the way security was compromised was “completely unacceptable”. The minister’s statement comes after the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) slapped a ₹ 1.2 crore fine on IndiGo Mr Scindia’s remarks also come against the backdrop of an uproar over poor airline services and long delays caused by dense fog conditions in north India.
Meanwhile, Mumbai airport authorities said the passengers refused to board the airline coach that would have taken them to the terminal building. Instead, they sat on the tarmac. The airport authorities said the passengers were cordoned off into a safe zone. Sources have told news agency PTI that the IndiGo aircraft was allotted a remote bay instead of a parking stand with an aerobridge. This meant that passengers could not even use washrooms or eat from the food stalls at the airport.
Delhi recently witnessed a couple of days of very dense fog, he said. The national capital is a key airport and when such an airport gets affected, delays and cancellations follow across the system, he explained.m”We have had a few days of zero visibility. In those days, even with CAT-III runways, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for landings and take-offs,” he said. CAT-III refers to high standards at airports that enable precision landing and take-offs amid bad weather conditions.

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