International India Flights - Got a bargain you'd like to share? Looking for the best fare to India? This is the place for you!

Immigration at the delhi Airpiort


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old Nov 15th, 2007, 11:54   #1
Sair Kar Duniya Ki Galib , Jindagani Fir Kahan ...
 
mridula's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: India
Posts: 2,548
Immigration at the delhi Airpiort

Last week I came back from UK at Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) (and thanks for all the help to IM folks for my plug point queries) and found that the immigration was pretty fast with all those ropes in place that aid in making an orderly queue. Is this common or was I lucky?

But the luggage belt was still a mess where they had to take luggage off it to make space or else it would get full.
__________________
Mridula

Travel Tales from India
mridula is online now   Reply With Quote
Old Nov 15th, 2007, 11:56   #2
Infidel Sufi
 
capt_mahajan's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: styx
Posts: 13,474
Immigration and Customs at any Indian airport is situational.. how many flights have recently arrived is the major consideration.

Even so, it is not uncommon to be out of airports within an hour or so of landing, unless you have dutiable stuff on you.
__________________
.
Outside the machine
capt_mahajan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Nov 15th, 2007, 12:01   #3
Sair Kar Duniya Ki Galib , Jindagani Fir Kahan ...
 
mridula's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: India
Posts: 2,548
Captain what I was impressed with was the orderly queues and a person guiding everyone to the next free counter. I mean my comparison point is a bit dated but I don't remember any such thing 3-4 years back. And all my experience is limited to IGI only.
mridula is online now   Reply With Quote
Old Nov 15th, 2007, 12:20   #4
Maha Infrequent Member
 
vinayverma's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Gurgaon
Posts: 1,472
you are right, the immigration few years back was really a pain with the queue going all the way up the stairs. lot of confusion with "indian passport' and 'foreign passport' queues. but in last one year, I've seen this change to a more managed situation. At the sametime, Capt is right, if there are many flights landing clos to each other (which is normally in the evenings or early night) the immigration area again becomes a long wait.
On the bagagge belt, I've seen ground staff of the airlines taking off all the bagagges at the end of the belt and keeping it there for pick-up instead of letting them go round and round. this could lead to confusons, as many keep staring at the belt only to find their bags already off-loaded and kept aside.
__________________
If Life is a journey....travel on...and on..on..on.....
vinayverma is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Nov 15th, 2007, 13:30   #5
Sair Kar Duniya Ki Galib , Jindagani Fir Kahan ...
 
mridula's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: India
Posts: 2,548
Vinay, thanks for sharing your perspective. I am sure chaos is just a touch away at IGI but I did like the way immigration went this time. For the luggage thing my husband had warned me to look for baggages at the end of the belt but I agree this can be pretty problematic if you are not aware that the luggage gets off the belt after a while.
mridula is online now   Reply With Quote
Old Nov 15th, 2007, 13:58   #6
This is just a cameo appearance
 
Nick-H's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Chennai, India
Posts: 35,901
Yes... I've had that luggage experience at Chennai. Once you know to expect it it is ok, otherwise, one can waste a lot of time!

Chennai airport has changed quite a lot since I last came through 18 months back, with all new arrivals hall and new machinery. They were not so good at having trolleys available, though.

There used to be be separate Foreign/Indian queues for immigration, but this time they didn't segregate and everything moved faster. It could be that I picked, as the Captain says, a good arrival time, but the baggage hall seemed quite busy.

(Glad you had a good trip, and that they let you back into your own country ok )
__________________
... Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)
Nick-H is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Nov 15th, 2007, 14:01   #7
Sair Kar Duniya Ki Galib , Jindagani Fir Kahan ...
 
mridula's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: India
Posts: 2,548
Hey now that is a scary thought, that they won't let me enter back to India! I mean it never even crossed my mind!!!
mridula is online now   Reply With Quote
Old Nov 15th, 2007, 14:51   #8
This is just a cameo appearance
 
Nick-H's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Chennai, India
Posts: 35,901
... ....

Last month was my first trip out and return with a PIO card.

On the way out, the woman examined everything, stamped everything, and then examined it again.

On the way back in the guy gave a quick glance and gave the stamp; all done!

When I first took Mrs N to UK the Indian officials asked her more questions on the way out than the (notorious) UK immigration official did on entry!

You can never tell with these guys !
Nick-H is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply



Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Indian Immigration officials batistuta Indian Visa and Passport Questions 46 Jul 14th, 2009 14:21
adoption & immigration coleville India Expat Area 3 Dec 12th, 2007 04:48
non-indian immigration to india stivke Indian Visa and Passport Questions 1 Feb 18th, 2006 16:42
Never argue with an Immigration Officer! anar Indian Visa and Passport Questions 0 Sep 6th, 2005 19:03
Delhi/Mumbai to introduce new immigration counters to reduce long queues agni5454 Domestic India Flights 0 May 29th, 2005 19:27



Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.5
Copyright ©2000 - 2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. LinkBacks Enabled by vBSEO 3.1.0
IndiaMike.com ©2001-2009

Syndicate this content on your website with rss or javascript data feeds.