Air India Served Show-Cause Notice After Italian Flyers Bypass Delhi Immigration
Civil Aviation Ministry issues show-cause notice to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson after three Italian passengers skipped immigration at Delhi airport and flew to Munich.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has issued a show-cause notice to Air India over alleged procedural lapses that allowed three Italian passengers to board an onward international flight from Delhi without completing immigration formalities earlier this month.
The notice, addressed to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson, seeks an explanation for the lapses. The airline has not commented on the matter.
The passengers had arrived in Delhi on a flight from Amritsar on September 4 and then boarded a Lufthansa service to Munich. They did not pass through the immigration process at the Delhi airport.
According to sources, the Home Ministry has convened a meeting of stakeholders on Tuesday, September 15, to discuss the incident. Home Secretary Govind Mohan is expected to chair the deliberations.
Those likely to attend include the Secretary and Additional Secretary at the Civil Aviation Ministry, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, the Additional Secretary (UT and Foreigners) at the Home Ministry, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration, the Air India CEO and the Delhi Airport CEO.
Amritsar is among the airports where Air India has rolled out its 'Hub-and-Spoke' model, which allows passengers to clear immigration at their origin airport and travel seamlessly to overseas destinations. At the hub airport, where the international leg begins, travellers are only required to undergo a security check before boarding.
In a journey from Amritsar to a foreign destination via Delhi, Amritsar functions as the spoke and Delhi as the hub.
In this instance, the three passengers were issued boarding passes at Amritsar for both the Delhi leg and the Lufthansa flight to Munich. However, since the two flights were not part of Air India's Hub-and-Spoke arrangement, they were expected to exit through the arrival area and complete immigration before catching the Lufthansa flight.
Instead, after landing in Delhi, they were directed to the international transfer area, which meant they never reached the immigration counter and departed for Munich without the required clearance.
Air India and Lufthansa share an interline partnership, an arrangement that generally lets passengers book connecting flights across different carriers under a single itinerary.