How were three Italian nationals allowed into Delhi airport’s international-to-international (I-to-I) transfer area when their boarding passes required them to undergo immigration? Who escorted them there? And why did the system detect the breach only after they had flown out of India?The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has confronted Air India with nine such questions, seeking to establish how multiple safeguards under its hub-and-spoke operations failed as the three passengers travelled from Amritsar to Delhi and onwards to Munich without mandatory departure immigration clearance.In its show-cause notice to Air India, the ministry has sought answers covering almost every stage of their journey — from the boarding passes issued at Amritsar and their routing after landing in Delhi to the role of Air India and SATS personnel, passenger segregation, immigration data and supervisory checks.The three passengers arrived at Delhi airport at 12.50 am on September 4 aboard Air India flight AI1115 from Amritsar. Under the approved hub-and-spoke SOP (standard operating procedure), they held “D” (Domestic) boarding passes and were required to exit through designated Gate 39 in the immigration area, complete mandatory departure immigration and then proceed for their Lufthansa flight to Munich.That did not happen. Instead, they were allegedly escorted to the I-to-I transfer area, from where they proceeded to the departure zone and boarded Lufthansa flight LH763 to Munich at 1.45 am on September 4 without obtaining departure immigration clearance.The ministry’s first question goes directly to this breach: under what circumstances were three passengers holding “D” boarding passes permitted to enter the I-to-I transfer area?It has also asked why segregation based on the boarding-pass indicator was not followed and why the passengers were escorted through the I-to-I route despite being required to pass through the designated immigration area.The scrutiny also goes back to Amritsar, where the journey began. Air India has been asked why an onward boarding pass for the Lufthansa flight was issued at Amritsar when, according to the ministry, the hub-and-spoke SOP did not provide for issuance of an onward boarding pass at the spoke airport.The government also wants accountability fixed on the ground. It has sought details of the role and responsibility of Air India and SATS personnel involved in handling and escorting the passengers.The airline’s supervisory mechanism is under the scanner as well. The ministry has asked about the role of Air India’s designated Airline Nodal Officer and the supervision in place at the time. Under the SOP, airlines are required to have a dedicated nodal officer and supporting team available round-the-clock at hub-and-spoke airports to ensure no passenger leaves the country without completing the prescribed immigration process.Another poser concerns passenger reconciliation: why was the mandatory reconciliation of domestic and international passengers not carried out in time at Delhi airport?The ministry has also sought an explanation on whether the General Declaration, passenger manifest, API/PNR data and other passenger information were submitted to immigration authorities on time and, crucially, whether the information correctly reflected the status and movement of the three passengers.Its final question goes to the heart of the breakdown — why was the deviation detected only later through manual reconciliation, rather than by the prescribed controls before the passengers departed?Taken together, the nine questions trace the alleged failure through successive layers — boarding-pass issuance, segregation, routing, identity verification, immigration, airline supervision, passenger reconciliation and information sharing.Air India has seven days from receipt of the September 12 notice to provide its written explanation along with the documents sought by the ministry.If the airline fails to respond within the stipulated period, the ministry has warned that it will presume Air India has no explanation to offer and proceed on the basis of available records, including consideration of administrative and regulatory action.What began with three passengers allegedly taking the wrong route through Delhi airport has now turned into a wider examination of how a hub-and-spoke system built around multiple checks failed at successive stages — and why nobody caught the breach until the passengers had already left the country.