Show cause notice to Air India for immigration lapses
The civil aviation ministry has issued a show-cause notice to Air India for alleged procedural lapses that resulted in three Italian passengers taking a connecting flight from the Delhi airport without completing immigration process earlier this month and the home ministry has called for a meeting of the stakeholders to discuss the incident on Tuesday, according to sources.
The three passengers had taken a flight from Amritsar to 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, the sources said.
There was no comment from Air India on the incident. The civil aviation ministry has issued a show-cause notice to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson seeking an explanation on the alleged procedural lapses. The sources said Home Secretary Govind Mohan will chair a meeting to discuss the incident on Tuesday.
Secretary and Additional Secretary at the civil aviation ministry, Director of Intelligence Bureau, Additional Secretary (UT and Foreigners) at the home ministry, Bureau of Immigration (BoI) Commissioner, Air India CEO and Delhi airport CEO are expected to attend the meeting, they added.
Amritsar airport is among the airports from where Air India has introduced ‘Hub-and-Spoke’ model flights, under which passengers can complete the immigration process at the origin airport and travel seamlessly to overseas destinations. At the hub airport from where the international flight starts, passengers can just go through the security check and board the concerned flight. If a person is travelling from Amritsar via Delhi to a foreign destination, then Amritsar is the spoke and Delhi is the hub.
In the particular case of the three Italian passengers, the sources said they were issued the boarding passes at Amritsar airport for Delhi as well as the Lufthansa flight to Munich. Since the two flights did not come under Air India’s ‘Hub-and-Spoke’ model, the three passengers were supposed to come out through the arrival area and then do their immigration process before taking the Lufthansa flight.
However, after landing at the Delhi airport, they were taken to the international transfer area, as a result of which they did not reach the immigration counter and, without completing the immigration process, took the flight to Munich, the sources said.
Air India and Lufthansa have an interline partnership. Generally, an interline agreement allows passengers to book connecting flights across different airlines under a single itinerary.
