Three Italians Skip Delhi Immigration; Air India Gets Show-Cause Notice

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has issued a show-cause notice to Air India after three Italian nationals flew from Delhi to Munich without passing through immigration, in a lapse that has raised questions about the airline's passenger-handling systems at its hub.

The three passengers arrived in Delhi from Amritsar on Air India flight AI-1115 at about 12:50 am on September 4. Roughly an hour later, at around 1:45 am, they boarded Lufthansa flight LH-763 to Munich. They did not undergo immigration clearance before leaving the country.

How the passengers bypassed checks

The passengers were travelling under Air India's hub-and-spoke arrangement, in which travellers from smaller airports are flown to a major hub before connecting to an international flight. They held "D", or domestic, boarding passes for the Amritsar-Delhi leg, and were also issued boarding passes at Amritsar for the onward Lufthansa flight.

The ministry has questioned the issuance of the onward boarding passes, noting that Air India's standard operating procedure provides for only two categories — "D" for domestic and "I" for international passengers — and does not cover the process followed in this case.

On arrival in Delhi, the passengers should have been identified as international travellers and diverted away from the domestic flow towards immigration. Instead, they were taken from Gate 39 to the International-to-International Transfer Area, from where they reached the departure area and boarded the Lufthansa flight without passing the immigration checkpoint.

Five SOP provisions flagged

The ministry has flagged five provisions of Air India's Domestic-International Operations SOP. These cover the prescribed boarding-pass categories, the segregation of domestic and international passengers after disembarkation, and the rule that only holders of "I" category passes may access the International-to-International Transfer Desk.

The remaining two provisions concern the airline's obligation to keep a nodal officer and a monitoring team at hub and spoke airports around the clock, tasked with ensuring passengers do not enter the international departure process through an incorrect route without completing mandatory formalities. The ministry has said this monitoring mechanism failed.

Questions for the airline

The notice seeks detailed answers on how holders of domestic boarding passes reached the international transfer area, why they were not separated from domestic passengers in Delhi, and why onward boarding passes were issued at Amritsar.

Air India has also been asked to clarify the role of its personnel and SATS staff involved in handling and transferring the passengers, and to provide details of the nodal officer and monitoring team on duty at the time, including why reconciliation of domestic and international passengers was not completed promptly.

The ministry has further sought information on whether the General Declaration, passenger manifest and API-PNR data were shared with immigration authorities in time, and whether the passengers' status was accurately reflected in those records.

The discrepancy came to light only later, during manual reconciliation, raising questions about why existing checks did not flag it before departure.

Seven days to respond

Air India has seven days from receipt of the notice to explain why action should not be initiated against it for failing to follow the prescribed SOP and take adequate precautions. The ministry has warned that a failure to respond within the period could be treated as having no explanation to offer, after which administrative and regulatory action may be considered on the basis of available records.

Under a hub-and-spoke model, passengers from smaller airports connect to international destinations through a major airport. At the hub, those arriving on domestic flights but holding onward international bookings must be correctly identified and routed through immigration before leaving India.