The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has called an urgent meeting of senior officials from the home and civil aviation ministries and other stakeholders after three Italian passengers travelled from Amritsar to Delhi and boarded a Lufthansa flight to Munich without completing mandatory immigration formalities.
The meeting will be held on Tuesday evening and comes days after the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) issued a show-cause notice to Air India over the handling of the passengers. The incident took place on September 4.
According to a Hindustan Times report, the meeting will be chaired by Home Secretary Govind Mohan. It will be attended by senior officials from the MHA and civil aviation ministry, along with the Intelligence Bureau director, Bureau of Immigration commissioner, Air India Group head and Delhi airport CEO.
“The home ministry has called for a meeting of the stakeholders at 7pm in Kartavya Bhawan (MHA office) to discuss the incident on Tuesday,” an official said.
The meeting follows concerns raised by the MHA over the airline’s handling of the passengers. The MoCA issued a show-cause notice to Air India on September 12 in connection with the matter.
Air India has not commented on the incident. According to the Hindustan Times report, the airline has also not responded to the show-cause notice.
The three Italian passengers had travelled from Amritsar to Delhi to board a Lufthansa flight bound for Munich. However, they did not complete the mandatory immigration process at Delhi airport before boarding the international flight.
People aware of the matter said the lapse appears to have occurred at Amritsar airport. The passengers were reportedly issued two boarding passes there, one for their flight to Delhi and another for the Lufthansa flight to Munich.
“They were issued two boarding passes at the Amritsar airport for Delhi as well as for the Munich flight operated by Lufthansa. The passengers were supposed to complete their immigration at the Delhi airport but they were directed to the I-to-I (international-to-international) transfer, due to which they were able to board their international flight without completing the mandatory process,” one of the people said.
Amritsar is among the airports where the government has introduced a “hub-and-spoke model”. Under this arrangement, passengers travelling to international destinations complete immigration formalities at the origin airport before transferring to an international flight at a designated hub.
At the hub airport, passengers are required to undergo security checks before boarding their onward international flight.
In this case, however, the passengers travelled from Amritsar, the spoke, to Delhi, the hub, before taking an international flight to Munich. According to people aware of the matter, the two flights were not operating under the applicable hub-and-spoke arrangement.
As a result, the passengers were required to complete immigration formalities at Delhi airport before boarding the Lufthansa flight, making the alleged lapse possible.
