IndiGo pilot Captain Rohit Mateti has been earning praise from social media users after he came to comedian Kunal Kamra’s support and told the airline's management that he was “disappointed” that the airline took the decision to ban Kamra based on social media posts.
Here’s what we know about Captain Mateti:
From his social media posts he seems to be a passionate athlete, runner and scuba diver besides being a pilot. He has studied at The Lawrence School, Lovedale, Ooty, Tamil Nadu, and started off as a Trainee First Officer with SpiceJet in 2011 for a year and then served as First Officer till 2016 in Mumbai. After his stint with SpiceJet, Mateti joined IndiGo as a Senior First Officer from 2016 to 2018, and is currently an Airline Captain.
Comedian Kunal Kamra was banned by IndiGo, for six months, after a video of him confronting Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami in a flight went viral. Three other airlines – Air India, Spice Jet and GoAir – have also banned him. Rohit Mateti, who was captain of the flight, subsequently wrote to the airline’s management that he did not “find events reportable in any way” and “Mr Kamra's behaviour, while unsavoury, was not qualifying of a level 1 unruly passenger. Indeed, we pilots can all attest to incidents similar and/or worse in nature that were not deemed unruly.”
In the lengthy email, the pilot explained that after he was informed of the altercation between Kamra and Goswami, he turned on the surveillance from the cockpit where he “noticed Mr. Kamra gesticulating to Mr. Goswami who was unresponsive.” Over the PA system, Mateti asked Kamra to return to his seat.
“At this time I made a Passenger Address to the cabin asking the gentleman standing in the passenger aisle near Row 1 to return to his seat, and that any disagreements they may have could be sorted out on the ground after the conclusion of the flight. Mr. Kamra upon hearing this immediately apologised again to the LCA, relayed an apology to me via the LCA and subsequently returned to his seat,” to pilot wrote.
He went on to add that Goswami was informed the airline would help him lodge a complaint after landing in Lucknow should he wish to do so.
Mateti also pointed out that “while Mr. Kamra’s behaviour was unacceptable and verbally abusive, at no point did he not comply with crew instructions. While he did briefly display Level 1 traits for Disruptive behaviour (ICAO Doc 9811), he was also immediately compliant of crew instruction, was never issued a red warning card and hence cannot be classified as such.”
He ended saying he was “disheartened” to learn that the airline had taken action “solely on the basis of social media posts with no consultation whatsoever with the Pilot-in-Command.” “This is somewhat unprecedented in my 9 years of airline flying. Moving forward, am I to understand that the bar for interpretation of a disruptive passenger is lower/different when it comes to high profile cases? Perhaps the SEP Manual is to be amended to reflect this? I would like a clarification from the airline as this leaves a lot of room for ambiguity.”
Read the full letter here.
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