Airport immigration lapse involving Italians: What happened and why Indian govt called urgent meeting

The Union government has reportedly called an emergency meeting on Tuesday evening following a major security lapse in which three Italian travellers boarded an international flight from Delhi to Munich without completing mandatory immigration checks. 

Home Secretary Govind Mohan is set to chair the meeting at Kartavya Bhawan to review how the passengers were able to bypass immigration and reach the international departure area.

The meeting is expected to bring together senior officials from the ministries and agencies responsible for aviation and border security. The Civil Aviation Secretary, an Additional Secretary, Intelligence Bureau Director and Bureau of Immigration Commissioner are among those scheduled to attend.

Air India chief executive Campbell Wilson and the CEO of Delhi Airport are also expected to join the meeting, underlining the seriousness of the lapse. The review is taking place alongside regulatory action against Air India. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has issued a formal show-cause notice to Wilson, seeking an explanation for the procedural failure. Air India had reportedly not submitted its response promptly.

How the immigration breach happened

The incident took place on September 4, when the three Italian nationals began their journey at Amritsar airport. They travelled to Delhi on an Air India flight before taking a Lufthansa flight to Munich.

Air India and Lufthansa have an interline agreement, allowing passengers to book connecting journeys involving both airlines under a single itinerary. At Amritsar, airport staff issued the three passengers boarding passes for both sectors of their journey.

The arrangement became critical because Air India follows a hub-and-spoke model at selected airports, including Amritsar, for certain international journeys.

Under this system, passengers travelling internationally from a designated feeder airport can complete immigration at their starting point, or the 'spoke'. After arriving at the hub, such as Delhi, they can proceed through the designated international transfer process without having to clear immigration again.

However, the three passengers' particular journey did not qualify for this arrangement.

Lufthansa connection created a procedural gap

The onward flight from Delhi to Munich was operated by Lufthansa, not Air India. As a result, the passengers could not be treated as international transfer passengers under the applicable Air India hub-and-spoke procedure.

Under the normal process, they should have exited through the domestic arrival area after landing in Delhi. They then needed to enter the appropriate departure area, complete immigration at the regular counter and proceed to their international flight.

That did not happen.

After arriving in Delhi, the passengers were instead reportedly escorted or routed directly into the international transfer area. As they had been treated operationally as transfer passengers, they never reached an immigration counter.

The three then proceeded to the Lufthansa flight and flew to Germany without completing the mandatory immigration clearance.

Initial lapse reportedly traced to Amritsar

Preliminary findings indicate that the initial procedural error appears to have occurred at Amritsar airport, where the passengers were issued boarding passes for both sectors and their journey was apparently handled in a manner that did not reflect the actual eligibility of their itinerary for the hub-and-spoke process.

The government review is expected to examine the sequence of decisions from Amritsar to Delhi, including the issuing of boarding passes, passenger handling and airport routing.

The incident has raised questions over coordination between the airline, airport operations and immigration procedures, particularly where passengers travel on connecting flights involving different airlines.