At Least 85 Flights Receive Fresh Bomb Threats On Thursday, 25 Akasa Planes Affected

Nearly 85 flights received fresh bomb threats on Thursday, including 20 Air India, 20 Indigo, 20 Vistara, and 25 Akasa Air planes.

As Indian carriers remain on high alert amidst increased threats on a daily basis, nearly 85 flights received fresh bomb threats on Thursday, October 24. These include 20 Air India, 20 Indigo, 20 Vistara, and 25 Akasa Air flights.

This comes as the Centre lambasted social media platform X (formerly Twitter) for the way it was handling hoax bomb threats to domestic and international flights. Indian carriers have been significantly affected by these threats causing widespread disruption and security concerns. 

According to media reports, a virtual meeting was held on October 22 evening to address the issue. It was chaired by Joint Secretary Sanket S Bhondve and airline officials from Vistara, Air India were also present along with representatives from X and Meta.

On Tuesday, at least 50 domestic and international flights of Indian carriers received bomb threats, which took the tally of the number of flight threats since Monday night to around 80. 

Out of the 50 planes affected on Tuesday, 13 belonged to Air India and IndiGo, while 11 Vistara flights and 12 Akasa Air flights were hit. On Monday night, 10 flights each of IndiGo,Air India, and Vistara had received the threats. Due to this, three Jeddah-bound IndiGo flights had to be diverted to airports in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Over the last week, over 170 flights operated by Indian carriers have received bomb threats. Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu said on Monday that even though bomb threats are hoaxes, things cannot be taken non-seriously.

Meanwhile, the government is planning legislative actions such as placing the perpetrators on the no-fly list, to handle the bomb threats to airlines. It is also proposing amendments to The Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act (SUASCA), 1982, which would allow the perpetrators to be arrested and a probe to be launched against them without the need of a court order. If implemented this would also be for the offences when an aircraft is on the ground, PTI reported.

Besides this, changes are also being planned to aircraft security rules to ensure perpetrators of bomb threats to flights get stringent punishment.