Air India Issued Show-Cause Notice After Three Italian Nationals Bypassed Delhi Airport Immigration on September 4, Home Ministry Convenes Emergency Meeting

The Ministry of Civil Aviation issued a show-cause notice to Air India on September 12 after three Italian passengers travelled from Amritsar to Delhi and boarded a connecting Lufthansa flight to Munich on September 4 without completing mandatory departure immigration clearance, according to ETV Bharat, Gulte, Daily Pioneer and Travel and Tour World. The passengers arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport at 00:50 hours on Air India flight AI-1115 and departed at 01:45 hours on Lufthansa LH-763, reportedly receiving boarding passes for both flights at Amritsar and using an international transfer route not applicable to their journey. The Civil Aviation Ministry called the incident a serious security and immigration lapse, asking Air India to explain within seven days how passengers received incorrect boarding passes and reached the international departure area without clearance. Home Secretary Govind Mohan chaired an emergency meeting on September 15 involving senior officials from the Home Ministry, Civil Aviation Ministry, Intelligence Bureau, Bureau of Immigration, Air India and Delhi airport authorities to examine how the lapse occurred under the hub-and-spoke system. The Home Ministry is considering measures including separate routing for domestic-to-international connecting passengers, colour-coded tags and stronger transit-airport checks. The incident came to light after officials later reviewed passenger records. Air India has not publicly commented, and CEO Campbell Wilson was named in the show-cause notice. The matter exposes operational gaps in India's expanding hub-and-spoke connectivity model, where domestic passengers transfer to international flights at major airports. For a UAE-based reader, the story matters because similar transfer models operate at Dubai and Abu Dhabi hubs, and any systemic weakness in immigration enforcement at a major regional hub raises questions about coordination between airlines, airports and government agencies in h