NEW DELHI: Civil Aviation Ministry on Friday unveiled new tougher rules to tackle on-board disruptive and unruly behaviour by air passengers. 

Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju said that the new rules will allow for the formation of a national, “No Fly List” of such unruly passengers. He said the promulgation of the No – Fly List in India is unique and first-of-its-kind in the world. 

Emphasizing the GovernmentÂs commitment for ensuring safety of air passengers, Mr. Raju said the concept of the No-Fly List is based on the concern for safety of passengers, crew and the aircraft, and not just on security threat.

Unruly behavior of passengers at airport premises will be dealt with by relevant security agencies under applicable penal provisions. The revised rules will be applicable to all Indian airlines on both domestic and international carriage of passengers. The CAR would also be applicable to foreign carriers subject to compliance of Tokyo Convention 1963.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said that the new rules have been promulgated after a lot of deliberation and consultation with all stakeholders. 

The revised rules define three categories of unruly behavior – Level 1 refers to behaviour that is verbally unruly, and calls for debarment upto three months; Level 2 indicates physical unruliness and can lead to the passenger being debarred from flying for upto six months and Level 3 indicates life-threatening behaviour where the debarment would be for a minimum of two years.

The complaint of unruly behavior would need to be filed by the pilot-in-command. These complaints will be probed by an internal committee to be set up by the airline which will decide the matter within 30 days. 

The airlines will be required to share the No-Fly list, and the same will be available on Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) website.