Govt mulling making Aadhaar or passport must for flying

New Delhi: The government is in the process of making Aadhaar number or passport mandatory for booking domestic flight tickets amid its plans to create a no-fly list to deal with unruly passengers.

"Aviation regulator DGCA will start working on a civil aviation requirement (CAR) this week," R N Choubey, secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation told PTI.

The ministry has asked the DGCA to draft the CAR by next week for consultation with stakeholders in this matter. Aadhaar number or passport will be useful in identifying an "unruly passenger" who has been barred from flying.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, in a series of tweets yesterday, had warned that unruly behaviour by passengers will result in "severe consequences" which would include police action as well as being placed on the no-fly list.

The no-fly list was mooted by Air India on the day Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad hit the national carrier's staff R Sukumar with his slipper. Air India had said that they were "examining" to create such a list.

The following day, the Federation of Indian Airlines, which has Jet Airways, SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir as its members, while announcing a ban on Gaikwad, also proposed the promulgation of a "no-fly list which shall include the names of all unruly passengers."

On Friday, TMC's Rajya Sabha MP Dola Sen had allegedly fought with the crew over not getting seats of her choice in an Air India flight from Delhi to Kolkata resulting in it being delayed by nearly 40 minutes.