No fly list and its context in Nepal
No fly list is a check list of people who are prohibited from boarding a commercial flight owing to their past history of punishable offence on board an aircraft. This is a system maintained by airlines across the globe to ensure safety of their passengers as well as the aircraft.
The offence that results in no fly list is broadly categorized into three levels. The duration of ban is determined accordingly. It may however differ from country to country depending upon the statutory requirement.
- Verbal harassment, inappropriate language and body gesture: Up to three months ban.
- Physical abuse and inappropriate touching : Up to six months ban
- Any action that possess threat to safety of passenger or damage to aircraft: Minimum two years ban and up to life long ban.
A recent example was when a senior journalist was abused and manhandled on board Indigo flight in India in January this year. The miscreant was quickly put in no fly list by Indigo and imposed a three month ban from flying. Other domestic airlines also followed the suit and kept him in no flying list.
Unfortunately, we don’t have this practice in place in our country so far. We had a terrible Nepalgunj incident last year but sadly no action followed up. In aviation industry, we often see cancellation/delays and this causes deep inconvenience to the passengers but it no way allows anyone to breach security protocol on board a flight.
It is therefore high time our domestic carriers also adopt no fly list to curb potential threat to the safety of passengers.
