Synopsis

Air India has suspended staff after three Italian passengers bypassed immigration at Delhi airport while connecting from Amritsar to Munich earlier this month. Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said stronger checks have now been introduced after the passengers were wrongly directed to the international transfer area instead of completing immigration formalities.

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Air India has suspended staff over the immigration security lapse that occurred at the Delhi airport earlier in the month and stronger checks have been put in place, Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said at a press conference on Tuesday. Three foreign passengers were allowed to board a connecting flight at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport without completing the immigration process.

The Italian nationals had taken a flight from Amritsar to Delhi on September 4 and subsequently boarded a Lufthansa flight from Delhi to Munich.

"All the lapses have been cleared and more stronger ecosystem has been created. The Air India personnel who was there to escort the passengers through the airport were found to be at fault and they were immediately suspended," Naidu said.

The civil aviation ministry on September 14 issued a show cause notice to Air India over the incident and the home ministry called for a meeting of the stakeholders, sources told PTI last week.

“That is where the idea of hub-and-spoke operations comes in. India truly believes in becoming a global aviation hub, and for that, the hub-and-spoke model is very important," Naidu 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 passenger is travelling from Amritsar via Delhi to a foreign destination, then Amritsar is the spoke and Delhi is the hub. In the case of the three Italian passengers, sources said Air India issued them boarding passes for both the Amritsar–Delhi sector and their onward Lufthansa flight to Munich.

“We have launched it in three cities, and it was going smoothly until we found one lapse. The ministry immediately responded and issued a show-cause notice to Air India so that any security issue could be addressed at once," Naidu said.

“We also met Air India and understood the checks and balances it has put in place to ensure that this situation does not recur. We are not relying on just one security parameter, but on multiple security parameters, so that this incident does not happen again," he added.

As the two sectors did not fall under Air India’s hub-and-spoke arrangement, the passengers were required to exit through the arrival area at Delhi airport and complete immigration before boarding the Lufthansa flight.

Instead, after arriving in Delhi, they were directed to the international transfer area. This meant they bypassed the immigration counter and boarded the Munich-bound flight without completing the required immigration formalities.

Air India and Lufthansa have an interline partnership, under which passengers can generally book connecting flights operated by both airlines through a single itinerary.

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