Air India Issued Show-Cause Notice After 3 Italian Nationals Leave India Without Immigration Clearance

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has issued a show-cause notice to Air India, seeking a response within seven days after three Italian nationals departed from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport for Munich without undergoing mandatory immigration clearance.

According to an NDTV report, the lapse occurred in the early hours of September 4. The three passengers arrived in Delhi from Amritsar on Air India flight AI-1115 at around 12:50 AM. Shortly after, at around 1:45 AM, they boarded Lufthansa flight LH-763 to Munich without undergoing the required immigration procedures before departing India.

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How The Passengers Bypassed Immigration?

The three passengers were travelling under Air India's hub-and-spoke model, where passengers from smaller airports are flown to a central hub to connect to international flights.

In this case, the travellers were issued domestic ("D") boarding passes for their Amritsar-Delhi Air India flight alongside onward boarding passes for their Lufthansa flight to Munich, a practice prohibited under the airline's standard operating procedures.

Upon arriving in Delhi, they should have been identified as international travellers and directed to immigration. Instead, they were taken from Gate 39 to the International-to-International Transfer Area, allowing them to reach the departure gate and board their flight without passing through an immigration checkpoint.

Five SOP Provisions Violations Flagged By Aviation Ministry

The ministry's notice flagged five violations of Air India's Domestic-International (DI) Operations Standard Operating Procedures.

These include the issuance of unauthorised boarding pass combinations, the failure to segregate domestic and international passengers on arrival, and allowing domestic boarding pass holders into the International-to-International Transfer Area. The remaining two provisions include the round-the-clock monitoring team and nodal officer oversight, as well as a failure to promptly perform the required reconciliation of domestic and international passengers.

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Air India Given Seven Days To Respond To Show-Cause Notice

This lapse went undetected until the passengers departed, and was discovered later during manual document verification. The Ministry has sought details on the actions of Air India and its ground-handling staff, as well as an explanation for why API-PNR data was not properly updated with immigration authorities. Air India has been given seven days to submit its response, after which the aviation regulator will proceed with administrative and disciplinary action based on existing records.