Procedural lapse Reported: Ministry issues show-cause notice to Air India
New Delhi, Sept 15: The Ministry of Civil Aviation has issued a show-cause notice to Air India over an alleged procedural lapse at Delhi airport that allowed three Italian passengers to board a connecting international flight without completing mandatory immigration formalities.
The passengers had travelled from Amritsar to Delhi on an Air India flight before boarding a Lufthansa service to Munich on 4 September.
The incident has raised concerns over passenger-handling and immigration protocols at Indira Gandhi International Airport, particularly the coordination required when passengers transfer from domestic to international services.
The ministry has sought an explanation from Air India CEO and Managing Director Campbell Wilson over the lapse.
According to sources cited in the report, the three passengers were issued boarding passes at Amritsar for both their Air India flight to Delhi and the onward Lufthansa flight to Munich.
However, their itinerary did not fall under Air India’s applicable hub-and-spoke arrangement. Under the arrangement, passengers travelling from designated airports can complete immigration formalities at the originating airport before connecting to an international flight at a hub.
In this case, the passengers were required to exit through the arrival area after reaching Delhi and complete immigration before proceeding to their international departure. Instead, they were directed to the international transfer area, enabling them to bypass the immigration counter before boarding the Munich-bound flight.
The passengers were travelling on a connecting itinerary involving Air India and Lufthansa. The two airlines have an interline partnership, under which passengers can book connecting flights operated by different carriers under a single itinerary.
The incident has brought renewed focus on how such connecting passengers are processed when an itinerary does not qualify for domestic-to-international transfer under the airline’s hub-and-spoke procedures.
Air India has not commented on the incident so far.
A meeting to discuss the incident is expected to be chaired by Home Secretary Govind Mohan. Officials expected to participate include senior representatives from the Civil Aviation Ministry, the Intelligence Bureau, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Bureau of Immigration, Air India and Delhi airport.
The review is likely to examine how the passengers were routed through the airport and whether existing checks and coordination mechanisms were followed. The incident has also prompted scrutiny of the procedures governing passenger transfers between domestic and international flights at major aviation hubs. (BVI)
