The commander of the IndiGo flight on which stand-up comic Kunal Kamra confronted journalist Arnab Goswami has purportedly written to the management questioning the rationale for the airline’s ban on Mr. Kamra, who, he asserts, had complied with the cabin crew’s instructions and while having displayed ‘unsavoury behaviour’ had not indulged in actions that would qualify him as a ‘Level 1 Unruly passenger’.
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“As Captain of 6E5317 BOM-LKO on 28.01.2020, I do not find the aforementioned events reportable in any way,” Captain Rohit Mateti, is purported to have written in an internal e-mail, an unverified leaked copy of which was posted on Twitter by several users. The leaked mail also appears to show the pilot expressing disappointment that the airline chose to act against Mr. Kamra without any “consultation whatsover with the Pilot-in-Command”.
IndiGo said in a press statement that it had “received the relevant statements and the internal committee has initiated the investigation regarding this incident.” The airline neither confirmed nor denied the contents of the e-mail purportedly written by its pilot.
Earlier this week, IndiGo announced that it was banning Mr. Kamra for six months and warned other passengers against indulging in personal slander while on-board its flights. Soon after, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Hardeep Puri “advised” other airlines to similarly ban Mr. Kamra. SpiceJet, GoAir and Air India have joined IndiGo in prohibiting Mr. Kamra from their flights “until further notice”.
Defending the ban to The Hindu , Mr. Puri asserted that the rules were secondary. “The ban is for threatening behaviour. There are no rules when Kunal Kamra has himself put out the video. Rules are for when the facts are not known. There needs to be zero tolerance for endangering the safety of passengers. There is no need to get into technicalities,” he said.
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Observing that it was IndiGo that had decided to impose the ban, the minister said his advise to other airlines to impose a ban was aimed at ensuring an example was set. “We can’t tolerate this. A message needs to go out,” Mr. Puri asserted.
Captain Mohan Ranganathan, an aviation safety expert, took to Twitter to laud Captain Mateti. “I would like to commend the captain for this bold letter, exposing the farce by MOCA (Ministry of Civil Aviation), DGCA and 4 airlines... If MOCA had any decency, they should lift the ban immediately and apologise for this wrong action.”
