AirAsia withdraws in-flight magazine for carrying wrong India map

New Delhi, Aug 7: Malaysian carrier AirAsia on Thursday withdrew all copies of its in-flight magazine from circulation and removed it from its website, complying with an order of aviation regulator DGCA, for wrongly depicting the map of India.

The airline, which was directed to comply with the order by 1700 hours, informed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) that it had withdrawn all the copies of the magazine, 'Travel3sixty', from its flights and removed the map from the website, official sources said.

Acting on a complaint, DGCA examined the issue and found that "wrongly depicted geographical boundaries of India" were shown in a map in the magazine, which was also uploaded on the airline's website.

The airline, which operates to Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata and Tiruchirappalli, was ordered by DGCA to withdraw all copies of the in-flight magazine from circulation and also remove it from its website "with immediate effect" and submit a compliance report.

Only authenticated map should be published in future, the regulator told AirAsia.

The sources said if the airline had failed to comply with the order, stringent action could have been taken against it, including stopping it from flying in and out of the country.

PTI