Three Italian nationals left India without completing mandatory immigration clearance after travelling from Amritsar to Delhi and then boarding a Lufthansa flight to Munich. The incident has prompted the Civil Aviation Ministry to issue a show-cause notice to Air India, seeking an explanation within seven days. The lapse has raised questions over passenger screening and the handling of domestic-to-international transfers at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport.
How The Lapse Happened
The incident took place on the night of September 3 and 4. The three passengers arrived in Delhi on Air India flight AI-1115 from Amritsar at around 12.50am. About an hour later, they boarded Lufthansa flight LH-763 to Munich.
Under the hub-and-spoke system, passengers travelling from a domestic airport to an international destination through Delhi must be identified and routed through immigration before leaving India.
The ministry said the passengers had been issued domestic boarding passes for their Amritsar-Delhi journey. However, they were also given boarding passes for their onward Lufthansa flight in Amritsar. The ministry said such an arrangement is not provided for under the prescribed standard operating procedure.
After reaching Delhi, the passengers should have been separated from domestic travellers and directed to immigration. Instead, they were sent towards the international-to-international transfer area and subsequently reached the departure zone without undergoing immigration.
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SOP And Monitoring Under Scrutiny
The ministry has flagged five violations of Air India’s D-I Operations SOP, including rules governing boarding passes, passenger segregation and access to transfer areas.
It has also questioned the role of Air India and SATS personnel, the availability of designated nodal officers and whether passenger manifests, General Declaration and API-PNR data were correctly shared with immigration authorities.
The lapse was detected later during a manual reconciliation process, rather than through the prescribed checks before departure.
Air India has seven days to respond to the notice. The ministry has warned that failure to respond could lead to regulatory and administrative action based on available records.
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