Zeus1234

I thought I’d share my recent experience of transferring without a vsia (TWOV) on a connection on separate tickets through BOM.

I had initially planned to go on holiday with my partner in India for the Christmas vacation, but we had to change our plans when he was unable to get an Indian visa. I decided to book a separate flight leaving from BOM to BKK a few hours later on Air India to salvage our vacation and go to Thailand instead. Our initial itinerary was on Swiss.

I was very concerned that there would be problems. I read horror stories about the transfer and was worried about the possibility of being denied boarding by Swiss. The itinerary was now LHR-ZRH-BOM-BKK. Upon arrival at LHR, we asked the agent to check in our bags to BKK. We showed her a print out of Air India ticket, and she was happy to do this. She did not check our passports for visas.

Upon arrival in BOM, we were told to meet with an airport representative who took us to a transfer lounge. There were at least 20 other people connecting onto other flights. We had to give our passports, old boarding passes, and Air India ticket info to the guy, he quickly got us our boarding passes and then told us to wait for about an hour. About an hour later, another person approached us, and asked to come with him to identify our bags. We went down into the bowels of the airport, and ended up outside in the area where planes are deloaded. It was quite interesting, although bizarre. We had to go through a security check. I’m not sure why they needed us to find our bags, as we gave them the luggage tags. As soon as we did, we were sent back upstairs, went through security and into the main departure areas.

Overall the experience was quite bizarre (especially the trip into the luggage area). It took us at least two hours from deplaning to get the departure area, so transferring would not be feasible for a fast connection. Still, I was pleased we managed to pull it off.

AJLondon

Thanks for the report. Does sound intruiging, but not too surprising!

oliver2002

We have a few BOM I/I transfer reports in this forum, no horror stories, it usually goes smooth. 9W will not ask you to ID luggage, BTW.

Keyser

international to international transfers in bom are usually quite simple....its domestic to international or the other way around that lead to the horror stories....

ndnashlenz

I agree, it's always transfer by shuttle bus and you have to always grab your luggage. One time when I was traveling with my family we boarded the shuttle bus from the domestic airport to go to the international airport for the connecting flight. The bus stopped on the way and the grounds people opened the luggage compartments and removed a few bags. When we finally reached the international airport almost everybody lost at least one of their luggage. When we tried to file a complaint we were just redirected from one person to another. We never got our luggage back either.

AJLondon

Wow, that is awful.

I have never heard that before, and I hope it is not a regular occurrence. Did you have the CISF armed guard sitting in the front of the bus?

ndnashlenz

No there was no guard
It was only the driver and the rest of the bus was filled with passengers. There were many poor people knocking on our windows and banging on the side of the every time we stopped at a intersection, hoping they could earn some money and we were told by the bus driver to look the other way. Which we did but that proved to be a very big mistake

flykodo

I have an upcoming trip on Jet Airways connecting in BOM. I'm going from Europe to Asia with only about a 2 hour connection both on Jet. I shouldn't have checked bags.

It looks like I don't need a visa (I'm US citizen) since I won't be going through immigration. Just wanted to confirm this is the experience others have recently had. Looks by the OP post, thats their experience.

oliver2002

No problem at all, just make sure you talk to a Jet Airways ground employee as soon as you get off the aircraft and don't follow the crowds one level down, but stay on the level from which you deplane.

flykodo

Much appreciated. Just checked on the IATA website and they say the same:

"Passengers transiting only are exempt from holding a visa when:
Holders of confirmed onward tickets for a max. transit time of 24 hours."

maxmin

Hi

Would anyone here mind telling me the experience that I can expect to transfer from SQ (SIN-BOM arr 22:30) to VS (BOM-LHR dep 03:20) ?

I will be on two separate tickets, and have hand luggage only.

Will there be VS transfer desks, for example? Or can I print the VS BP in advance?

Thank you!

hyderago

Good that you have only hand luggage. Two separate tickets is ok as long as you can check in online for VS and print out the boarding pass before landing in Bombay. I would imagine that you can do this, don't see any reason why not.

The potential complication you have is that the SQ agents in SIN might give you trouble while boarding because you do not have an Indian visa. It might take some work to convince them that you are just transfering in BOM.

maxmin

Ah, thanks... in that case perhaps I should apply for a visa?

hyderago

It would definitely be safer and give you peace of mind to apply for a transit visa.

AJLondon

I agree entirely with the wise words of hyderago.