Delhi airport tightens transfer checks after immigration lapse on Amritsar–Munich journey

Airports and airlines operating at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) have introduced manual boarding-pass inspections at domestic-to-international transfer points after three Italian nationals flew from Amritsar to Munich on 4 September without clearing outbound immigration. Under India’s hub-and-spoke standard operating procedure, passengers holding a ‘D’ (domestic) boarding pass on the feeder leg must exit into the immigration hall before boarding their onward international flight. In the incident, ground staff incorrectly escorted the Italians to the international-to-international (I-to-I) transfer zone. The Ministry of Home Affairs issued a show-cause notice to Air India on 12 September, and multiple agencies—including CISF, BCAS and the Bureau of Immigration—have since met to plug gaps. As an interim fix, airline and ground-handling staff must physically verify every transfer passenger’s boarding pass to confirm the ‘D’ or ‘I’ marker and route them correctly. Additional patrols have been deployed in the transfer area, and airlines have been told not to issue onward international boarding passes at spoke airports unless expressly authorised. A longer-term technological solution is being drafted. Stakeholders are considering barcode validation that would prevent a ‘D’ pass from opening I-to-I e-gates, as well as data-sharing between airlines and immigration so that mis-routed passengers trigger real-time alerts. For mobility managers the episode is a reminder that India’s fast-growing hub-and-spoke model still depends on strict process discipline. Until the fixes are automated, travellers connecting through Delhi should plan for slightly longer transfer windows and heed airline instructions on where to clear immigration.