Business | Scandal at Air India

A humiliating incident on an Air India flight triggers outrage

And, for Indian business, a bout of soul-searching

FILE- Air India planes are parked at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, India on Aug. 30, 2021. Indian police have arrested an unruly airline passenger following a complaint by a woman aboard an Air India flight from New York that he urinated on her in business class. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)
Image: AP
|Mumbai

Most in-flight horror stories, of which passengers everywhere experience too many, elicit a scripted apology from the airline or its chief executive. Then it is back to business; aggrieved travellers are left to stew. An incident in November on an Air India flight from New York to Delhi is playing out differently. On January 11th a court in the Indian capital heard a case of a 34-year-old man arrested for urinating while intoxicated on a 72-year-old female fellow business-class passenger. The man blamed the act on alcohol and told the court he had no memory of it when the cabin crew woke him and asked him to apologise, which he did. His bail request was nevertheless denied.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Skyfall”

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