Air India receives show-cause notice for Italian passengers who skip immigration at Delhi airport
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The civil aviation ministry issued a notice to Air India over alleged procedural lapses that led to three Italian passengers boarding a connecting flight from Delhi airport without completing the immigration process earlier this month, and the home ministry has convened a meeting of stakeholders to discuss the incident on Tuesday (15 Sep 2026), according to sources.
The three passengers left Amritsar for Delhi on September 4 and subsequently boarded a Lufthansa flight from Delhi to Munich.
However, they did not complete the immigration process at the Delhi airport, sources said.
Air India has not commented on the incident.
The ministry issued a notice to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson asking him to explain the alleged procedural lapses.
Sources said Home Minister Govind Mohan will chair a meeting on Tuesday (September 15) to discuss the incident.
The meeting is expected to be attended by the Secretary and Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Additional Secretary (UT and Foreigners) in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Commissioner Bureau of Immigration (BoI), Director General of Air India and Director General of Delhi Airport, they added.
Amritsar Airport is among the airports from where Air India has introduced ‘Hub-and-Spoke’ model flights where passengers can complete the immigration process at the departure airport and travel to overseas destinations without any hassles. At the main airport where the international flight takes off, passengers can go through security and board the respective flight.
If one travels from Amritsar via Delhi to a foreign destination, then Amritsar is the spoke and Delhi is the hub.
In the specific case of the three Italian passengers, sources said they were issued boarding passes at the Amritsar airport to Delhi and also on a Lufthansa flight to Munich.
Since the two flights did not fall under Air India’s “Hub-and-Spoke” model, the three passengers were supposed to exit through the arrivals area and then go through the immigration process before departing on the Lufthansa flight.
However, after landing at the Delhi airport, they were taken to the international transit area, as a result of which they missed the immigration counter and flew to Munich without completing the immigration process, sources said.
Air India and Lufthansa have an interline partnership. In general, an interline agreement allows passengers to book connecting flights across different airlines within a single itinerary.
Published – 15 Sep 2026 06:55 IST