Bomb threats to airlines: Govt plans legislative actions; Minister says ‘want to put perpetrators on no-fly list’

Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu on Monday said the Union government is planning to take legislative actions to deal with instances of bomb threats to airlines following recent hoax bomb calls on several domestic and international flights.

The Civil Aviation Minister said that the government plans to place perpetrators of such threats on the no-fly list. Notably, in the past week, nearly 100 flights of Indian airlines—domestic as well as international flights—have received bomb threats.

The minister said amendments are being planned to aviation security rules and the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982. He was addressing a news briefing in the national capital, Delhi, after following recent hoax bomb calls to Indian airlines.

“...From the Ministry, we have thought of some legislative action if it is required. We have come to the conclusion that there are two areas that we can explore - 1) Amendment in Aircraft Security Rules...one of the ideas that we want to propagate by changing these rules is that once we catch hold of the perpetrator who is behind this, we want to put them in the no-flying list... 2) Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act...,” the Civil Aviation Minister said.

“We are making it a cognizable offence, so based on that amendment, there is a going to be a punishment and also fine,” he added.

Earlier on Sunday, 25 flights operated by leading Indian airlines received bomb threats— the latest in a series of disruptions that have plagued airlines in recent days. The threat message was sent to Indigo through an anonymous account on X and claimed there were 12 bombers travelling on multiple flights.

Nearly 100 flights have been disrupted this week amid a barrage of threat messages sent to various Indian airlines — citing both domestic and international flights. Six flights each of IndiGo, Vistara, Air India and Akasa Air, and at least one flight of Air India Express received the threats on Sunday. This comes on the back of similar threat messages sent to more than 30 flights of various Indian carriers on Saturday.