The Union Home Ministry has called an urgent meeting of senior officials after three Italian passengers allegedly travelled from Amritsar to Delhi and boarded a Lufthansa flight to Munich without completing the mandatory immigration formalities at Delhi airport.
The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday evening at Kartavya Bhawan, will bring together officials from the Home Ministry, Civil Aviation Ministry, Intelligence Bureau, Bureau of Immigration, Air India and Delhi airport authorities.
The development follows a show-cause notice issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation to Air India on September 12. The notice was issued after concerns were raised by the Home Ministry over how the passengers were handled during their journey.
The incident reportedly took place on September 4. The three passengers had travelled from Amritsar to Delhi on an Air India flight before connecting to a Lufthansa international flight bound for Munich.
According to people familiar with the matter, the passengers were issued two boarding passes at Amritsar airport — one for the Delhi flight and another for the onward Lufthansa flight to Munich. They were supposed to complete their immigration formalities at Delhi airport before boarding the international flight.
However, the passengers were reportedly directed towards the international-to-international, or I-to-I, transfer route. This allowed them to proceed towards their connecting international flight without undergoing the required immigration process.
The lapse appears to have originated at Amritsar airport, according to officials aware of the matter. The circumstances surrounding the decision to issue both boarding passes and direct the passengers through the I-to-I transfer route are now under scrutiny.
The case has also raised questions about the implementation of India's airport hub-and-spoke model.
Under this system, passengers travelling from a smaller or regional airport to an international destination through a designated hub are generally expected to complete immigration formalities at the origin airport. At the hub airport, they normally undergo security checks before boarding their international flight.
Amritsar is among the airports where this system has been introduced. However, the three passengers in this case were travelling from Amritsar to Delhi before taking a separate Lufthansa flight to Munich.
According to officials familiar with the matter, the flights were not operating under the applicable hub-and-spoke arrangement. As a result, the passengers were required to complete immigration formalities after reaching Delhi before boarding the Lufthansa flight.
The incident has prompted the Home Ministry to bring together all key stakeholders to examine how the lapse occurred and whether there were shortcomings in coordination between the airline, airport authorities and immigration officials.
The meeting will be chaired by Home Secretary Govind Mohan. Senior officials, including the Civil Aviation Ministry's secretary and additional secretary, Intelligence Bureau director, Home Ministry officials, Bureau of Immigration commissioner, Air India Group head and Delhi airport CEO, are expected to participate.
Air India has not publicly commented on the matter, while the Civil Aviation Ministry has also declined to comment. According to reports, the airline had not responded to the show-cause notice by Tuesday evening.
The urgent meeting is expected to focus on the sequence of events, the responsibilities of different agencies and measures to prevent similar lapses in the future.
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