NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Air India to operate international flights with middle seats occupied for next 10 days even as it pulled up the national carrier over COVID-19 safety norms.
“We are of the considered view that the petitioner, Air India, should be allowed to operate non-scheduled flights with the middle seats booking up to 6th June, 2020,” a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde said.
The top court sent the matter back to the Bombay High Court, which had on May 22 questioned IA over not following physical distancing norms on board its international flights. The high court is scheduled to take up the matter on June 2.
“However, after that the Air India will operate non-scheduled flights in accordance with the interim order to be passed by the Bombay High Court thereafter,” the Bench ordered.
The order came on a petition filed by the Centre and Air India challenging a Bombay High Court order asking Air India to explain why it was not keeping middle seats vacant in its international flights in terms of physical distancing norms in force due to COVID19 pandemic.
Acting on a petition by a pilot, the high court had sought responses from Air India and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on alleged violation of March 23 circular issued by the Centre in this regard.
During the hearing, the Bench made it clear that it was distributed to know that Air India was giving precedence to commercial considerations over COVID19 safety norms. Government should be worried more about health of citizens than that of the airline, it said.
However, it agreed to grant concession after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta pointed out that passengers stranded on foreign soil at airports would face immense difficulty as they had already been issued valid tickets for travel.
“This has resulted in a lot of anxiety and difficulties arising from want of proper shelter, money, etc, at foreign airports, Mehta said, in some cases the travel plan of families travelling together would be disrupted because those booked middle seats will have to be off-loaded and left behind.
While passing the order giving concession to IA, the top court said: “We would normally be not inclined to interfere with the interim orders made by the courts below.”
The top court said: “The Director General of Civil Aviation is free to alter any norms he may consider necessary during the pendency of the matter in the interest of public health and safety of the passengers rather than of commercial considerations”.