The incident took place on September 4“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.
Updated: September 15, 2026, 7:47 AM IST
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Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport
New Delhi: In a significant development, 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 on Tuesday evening after three Italian passengers travelled from Amritsar to Delhi and boarded a Lufthansa flight to Munich without completing the mandatory immigration process.
According to reports, Home Secretary Govind Mohan will chair the meeting, which will be attended by senior officials, including the Secretary and Additional Secretary of the Civil Aviation Ministry, the Intelligence Bureau Director, the Secretary and Additional Secretary of the Home Ministry, the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) Commissioner, the Air India Group head and the Delhi airport CEO.
It is important to note that the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) issued a show-cause notice to Air India on September 12, after concerns were raised by the MHA over the airline’s handling of the passengers.
The incident took place on September 4“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.
What Did Air India Say?
An Air India spokesperson did not comment on the matterMoCA also did not offer a comment.
What is ‘Hub-and-Spoke’ model?
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 destinationsAt the hub airport from where the international flight starts, passengers can just go through the security check and board the flight concerned.
If a person is travelling from Amritsar via Delhi to a foreign destination, then Amritsar is the spoke and Delhi is the hubIn the particular case of the three Italian passengers, the sources said they were issued the boarding passes at Amritsar airport for Delhi as well as the Lufthansa flight to Munich.
Since the two flights did not come under Air India’s ‘Hub-and-Spoke’ model, the three passengers were supposed to come out through the arrival area and then do their immigration process before taking the Lufthansa flight.
However, after landing at the Delhi airport, they were taken to the international transfer area as a result of which they did not reach the immigration counter and without completing the immigration process took the flight to Munich, the sources said.
It is important to note that Air India and Lufthansa have an interline partnershipGenerally, an interline agreement allows passengers to book connecting flights across different airlines under a single itinerary.
