Air India has been served a show-cause notice after an immigration lapse involving three passengers at Delhi airport.

The three Italian passengers travelled from Amritsar to Delhi on Air India flight AI-1115 on September 4, then boarded a Lufthansa flight to Munich without completing immigration formalities.

The Civil Aviation Ministry termed the incident a ‘serious security and immigration-related lapse’, triggering a stakeholder meeting called by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Air India’s hub-and-spoke model permits some passengers to clear immigration at their origin airport, but the three were reportedly not on an eligible connection.

The airline must formally respond to the notice, outlining the lapse and corrective steps it intends to take.

Under Air India’s hub-and-spoke model, passengers travelling from a spoke airport to an international destination through a hub can sometimes complete immigration formalities at the origin airport, but the three passengers were reportedly not travelling under an eligible Air India connection.

Show-cause notices require airlines to formally respond to regulators explaining the lapse and the corrective steps being taken, with further action possible depending on the response.

Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport handles a significant share of India’s international transfer traffic, making procedural lapses there a particular concern for aviation security.

Airport immigration procedures are designed to ensure that international transfer passengers are properly screened and documented before entering a connecting flight’s international zone.

The incident adds to a series of recent regulatory scrutiny episodes involving Air India, ranging from flight delays to safety and operational reviews.

Indian aviation authorities have periodically tightened protocols at major hub airports following lapses of this kind, particularly involving cross-airline international connections.

The three passengers, identified as Surjit Singh, Balwinder Kaur and Gurdev Singh, had flown from Amritsar to Delhi on Air India flight AI-1115 on September 4.

They subsequently boarded Lufthansa flight LH-763 from Delhi to Munich without completing mandatory immigration formalities at Delhi airport.

Air India aircraft, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Flight disruption continued today, with several services delayed by as much as 14 hours.

A SpiceJet flight from Kochi faced the longest wait, with its departure pushed to the next day, while a SpiceJet flight from Jaipur was delayed by nearly 12 hours.

Air India Express flights from Amritsar and Kochi were delayed by close to 12 hours and over two hours respectively.

An Air India flight from New Delhi saw a delay of around 1.5 hours.

The disruption follows a wider wave of delays across Asian airports on September 11 and 12, which saw 4,804 flights delayed and 206 cancelled, including 475 delayed departures at Delhi’s IGI Airport.

Air India Express operates a significant share of India’s Gulf-bound routes, including services to Muscat, Salalah and Kuwait, making its schedule reliability closely watched by frequent flyers on those corridors.

Extended delays of this length typically trigger compensation or rebooking obligations for airlines under India’s civil aviation passenger charter, depending on the specific circumstances of each flight.

The Bengaluru–Vijayawada Air India route has also seen recent delay reports, adding to a pattern of disruption across the carrier’s domestic network this month.

Ground handling and crew scheduling pressures have been cited in some recent Indian aviation disruptions, though airlines have not confirmed this as a specific cause for Saturday’s delays.

Passengers travelling on affected routes were advised to check their flight status directly with airlines given the scale and unpredictability of the ongoing disruptions.

The delays come days after a separate wave of disruption swept Asian aviation hubs on September 11 and 12, when 4,804 flights were delayed and 206 cancelled across the region.

Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport was among the worst-hit in that broader regional disruption, logging 475 delayed departures over the two-day period.

Passengers on the affected Amritsar and Jaipur flights faced waits of nearly 12 hours before departure, with some SpiceJet passengers from Kochi seeing their flight pushed to the following day.

SpiceJet aircraft landing in New Delhi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Adani Airport Holdings has raised $1 billion in primary equity funding, bringing in Temasek and BlackRock-managed funds among its new investors.

The investor consortium, which also includes Alpha Wave Global and Premji Invest, will collectively own about 5.54 percent of the company.

The deal values Adani’s airport business at roughly $18 billion on a pre-money basis.

Funds raised will go toward modernising airport infrastructure, building Adani Airport City ecosystems, and expanding passenger and cargo-related businesses.

AAHL operates eight airports in India, including Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, accounting for about 25 percent of the country’s passenger traffic.

The capital infusion is expected to support development of integrated ‘Adani Airport City’ ecosystems, combining aeronautical and non-aeronautical commercial infrastructure around its airport sites.

Alpha Wave Global, Premji Invest, Temasek and BlackRock-managed funds are among the world’s largest institutional and sovereign-linked investors, giving the deal significant credibility in global infrastructure markets.

The deal comes as India debates whether to cap the number of airports a single private operator can control, a policy question that has drawn scrutiny of Adani’s expanding airport portfolio.

Part of the funding is earmarked for expanding capacity to handle nearly 200 million passengers annually across the group’s airport network.

This transaction ranks among the largest primary equity investments by financial institutions into India’s airport infrastructure sector to date.

Adani Airport Holdings Limited manages eight airports across India, including Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, and accounts for about 25 percent of India’s passenger traffic.

AAHL also handles roughly 33 percent of India’s air cargo volumes, making it the largest private airport operator in the country by traffic share.

The new investors will subscribe to shares in three tranches, with the final tranche expected to complete by July 2027.

The $18 billion pre-money valuation places Adani Airports among the most highly valued airport infrastructure businesses in Asia.

Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0