New Delhi: Airlines must de-board any passenger before departure if they refuse to wear face mask inside an aircraft. This instruction was given Wednesday by aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
If any passenger refuses to wear mask or follow Covid1-19 protocol in a flight mid-air, the airline may bar them from flying for a certain period of time by classifying them as ‘unruly passenger’, the DGCA said in a circular.
Besides, airport operators must take help of the local police and security agencies to instruct people to wear masks. They must levy fines on people not wearing face masks in terminals, the DGCA said.
The circular followed a Delhi High Court order of June 3. It said the ‘DGCA should issue separate binding directions to all staff persons deployed at the airports and in the aircraft, including flight attendants, air hostesses, captains/pilots and others, to take strict action against passengers and others who violate the masking and hygiene norms’.
All such persons found violating the norms must be fined. Persistent defaulters must be placed on the no- fly list, the court had said.
The DGCA’s circular said airlines must ensure the passengers wear masks properly on flights. The masks can be removed from faces only ‘under exceptional circumstances and for permitted reasons’. If a passenger needs an extra face mask, the airline must provide it, it noted.
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“The airline shall ensure that in case any passenger does not adhere to above instructions even after repeated warnings, he or she should be de-boarded, if need be, before departure,” the DGCA said.
The DGCA regulations give powers to airlines to ban passengers for a certain period of time after they have been declared ‘unruly’.
Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and other police personnel deployed at the entrance of the airport must ensure that no one is allowed to enter the premises without wearing a mask, it said.
“In case any passenger does not wear mask or refuses to wear mask and follow Covid-19 protocols, he/she should be fined as per the respective state law where the airport is located. The person may even be handed over to security agencies,” the DGCA pointed out.
Airport operators must take sanitisation measures at airports and provide hand sanitisers or dispensers at prominent places in the terminal, it further said.
When Centre resumed scheduled domestic flights May 25, 2020, after a two-month-long lockdown due to the outbreak of Covid-19, the DGCA had made it mandatory for passengers to wear masks and follow other protocols inside airport and aircraft.