The Civil Aviation Ministry has issued a show-cause notice to Air India after three Italian passengers boarded a connecting international flight from Delhi without completing mandatory immigration procedures.
The three passengers had flown from Amritsar to Delhi on Air India flight AI-1115 on September 4, then boarded Lufthansa flight LH-763 to Munich without clearing immigration at Delhi.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has termed the incident a ‘serious security and immigration-related lapse’, prompting the Ministry of Home Affairs to call a meeting of key stakeholders.
Under Air India’s hub-and-spoke model, some passengers can complete immigration at their origin airport, but the three passengers were reportedly not travelling under an eligible connection for that exemption.
The notice requires Air India to formally explain the lapse and outline corrective steps, with further regulatory action possible depending on its response.
The three passengers, identified as Surjit Singh, Balwinder Kaur and Gurdev Singh, had flown from Amritsar to Delhi on Air India flight AI-1115 on September 4.
They subsequently boarded Lufthansa flight LH-763 from Delhi to Munich without completing mandatory immigration formalities at Delhi airport.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has termed the incident a ‘serious security and immigration-related lapse’ in its notice to the airline.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has called a meeting of key stakeholders to examine how the passengers were able to move into the international transfer area without completing immigration checks.
Under Air India’s hub-and-spoke model, passengers travelling from a spoke airport to an international destination through a hub can sometimes complete immigration formalities at the origin airport, but the three passengers were reportedly not travelling under an eligible Air India connection.
Show-cause notices require airlines to formally respond to regulators explaining the lapse and the corrective steps being taken, with further action possible depending on the response.
Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport handles a significant share of India’s international transfer traffic, making procedural lapses there a particular concern for aviation security.
Air India aircraft, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
