Around 10 social media handles, the majority of them on X, have been suspended or blocked since many hoax bomb threats started being sent virtually to all the Indian airliners for domestic as well as international route operations.
These hoaxes not only created inconvenience to fliers, but they were also unnecessarily forced to spend hours at airports as the aircraft awaited security clearance. It also brings a major financial loss to the concerned airline company. In fact, as per an estimate, a bomb hoax can cost over Rs 3 crore. It can exceed other calculations for unscheduled landings, passenger accommodations, aircraft grounding, and crew replacements.
Three Vistara flights bound to international locations received bomb threats that turned out to be hoaxes while one of the aircraft was diverted to Frankfurt as a precautionary measure. It hit these airlines hard. In the past few days, more than 40 flights operated by the Indian carriers have made emergency landings due to security concerns arising out of such hoax threats.
Under such an incident, a New York-bound Air India Boeing 777 with almost 130 tons of jet fuel was immediately diverted within two hours of take-off. In another case, an Air India Boeing 777 from Delhi to Chicago was diverted to a remote town in Canada. Over 200 passengers were stranded for three and a half days before they were flown to Chicago on a Canadian Air Force A330 for which AI is to pay.
According to some reports, AI is expected to have paid an average daily rental of about $17,000 for the stranded B777 in Canada. These threats amid the peak festive rush season have hit the airlines hard. IndiGo, too, has got threats for several flights, both domestic and international.
While this all is beyond control; airlines also face legal challenges, in addition, from many passengers who miss connecting flights. Concerned officials claim the involvement of ‘Minors, Pranksters’. Against this, the Civil Aviation Ministry is planning strict norms to prevent incidents of hoax bomb threats to airlines.
The civil aviation ministry is mulling over several measures to deal with hoax bomb threats to airlines, including placing the perpetrators on the no-fly list.
A minor boy of 17 years of age from Chhattisgarh has been detained by the Mumbai Police in connection with the hoax bomb threats posted on social media platform X targeting three flights originating from Mumbai on October 14. Still there exist many other untraced threat calls, afterwards.
Educationist/Administrator/Editor/Author/Speaker
Commencing teaching in his early twenties, Prof Aggarwal has diverse experience of great tenure in the top institutions not only as an educationist, administrator, editor, author but also promoting youth and its achievements through the nicest possible content framing. A revolutionary to the core, he is also keen to address the society around him for its betterment and growth on positive notes while imbibing the true team spirit the work force along with.
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