Smooth flying: India plans to simplify immigration checks for international trips

New Delhi: India is looking to simplify immigration rules and increase the number of officials at major Indian airports to speed up the process of entering or leaving the country, said people with knowledge of the matter.

The government wants to develop Indian airports as South Asian transit hubs and a key part of the strategy is a concept known as the confluence of flights.

Passengers travelling overseas via connecting flights under the same ticket number, or PNR, will be able to complete customs and immigration checks at the first point while departing from India and at the final destination when arriving in the country even if there’s a layover.


For instance, passengers travelling from Bengaluru to San Francisco with a halt in Delhi now have to complete immigration at the latter airport. Similarly, passengers travelling from San Francisco to Bengaluru with a stopover in Delhi have to complete their customs and immigration there and check in again for the next leg of the journey to Bengaluru.

“This needs a lot of time and hence an airline has to keep a long connection time, which impacts efficient operation,” said an official.

“The government is considering a proposal where a passenger will not need to do this at intermediary points but at their first or final destinations.”

This, he said, will also reduce the burden on immigration staff at major airports like Delhi and Mumbai from where airlines operate most of their international flights.

“While the number of immigration officials and counters are being increased at these airports, spreading the function out will rationalise resources,” said the official.

A hub is one used by one or more airlines to concentrate passenger traffic. These serve as transfer points, allowing travellers to reach their destinations through an extensive network of flights, offering a wide range of routes to choose from.

Jyotiraditya Scindia, civil aviation minister in the outgoing cabinet, last week held a meeting with officials from the Bureau of Immigration on possible changes in rules, airport interior design and new technologies to expedite immigration and security checks for international travellers.

The new council of ministers will be sworn in on Sunday.

The country’s biggest carriers Air India and IndiGo as well as major airports like Delhi and Mumbai want to step up international flights and have sought the simplification of rules and processes, people aware of the development said.
Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, CEO of Delhi Airport, which is India’s busiest, said the facility is using artificial intelligence to study the profile of passengers to help manage the workload of immigration officials.

The airport found that there has been a surge of first-time visitors who arrive with an e-visa.

“For them, we have put in additional biometric machines supervised by immigration officials where the passenger coming for the first time can give me biometrics. So it becomes a two-way process, easing pressure on the immigration agent,” he said at the CAPA India Aviation Summit in Delhi on Friday.

“The maximum immigration time during peak hours is not more than 15-20 minutes.”

Air India has ordered 470 aircraft, out of which 70 are long-range planes. Market leader IndiGo has ordered 30 such aircraft, marking a broadening of its business strategy as it aims to enter the long-haul segment from 2027.

Tata Group-backed Air India expects to double the share of international passengers transiting through Indian airports on its flights to overseas destinations.

“The share of international passengers transiting via India on Air India flights has grown to an average of around 4% of our total international passenger traffic from 0.5% earlier,” said Nipun Aggarwal, chief commercial and transformation officer at Air India. “We expect this to grow even further to 10% over a period of 5-10 years.”

To turn Delhi and Mumbai airports into global hubs, changes are required to transform the experience of passengers, Aggarwal said.
“The way airports were privatised, they have ended up with a very heavy revenue share to the government,” he said. “So, often they are not left with the resources to invest. This will need some out-of-the-box solutions or incentives.”