Originally Posted by
emcampbe
This is my understanding, though I've never had to go through the process myself. I understand that you are marked as exiting on specific airline flight XXX and you need to be re-processed to leave on a different flight. It never happened to me, but that's what I was lead to believe. If that's the case, no reputable airline is going to allow you to board without the proper exit work completed - in fact, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a paperwork check before each international flight to verify that all pax were cleared properly from exiting the country on that flight. It's not that there's no turning around, per say, but you can't just get rebooked and show up at a different gate to board - there is a procedure you have to go through.
There's a thread here somewhere from a couple of years ago where a UA flight did get canceled out of BOM last minute, and I believe that they had to arrange with immigration to get all the passengers back to "cancel" their exit, and I think that process took a couple of hours.
Yup.
In India, the exit is generally tied to a specific flight. So, you cannot just show up at the gate and re-booked on any other flight. The airline will have to organize for the pax to re-enter and again exit the country in the alternate airline, etc.
This can obviously become a big issue ...especially for pax who do not have re-entry permissions (e.g., visa not valid after the original exit)., etc.
So, most airlines will try to avoid re-booking at the gate.
Other times, if the airline knows well ahead that a flight is going to cancel out, etc...then, they will re-book before the pax exits the country. (so, in the check-in area outside security).
If you already know your UA flight is going to cancel, it would be better to call United (1-800 number in the USA) and get re-booked on the phone; and then, exit the country with your new flight schedule.
Yes, they check the immigration and security check stamps, time, date, etc at least 3 times before you can board a plane. So, no way to get on a different flights once you cross passport control.
BTW - Even for domestic flights within India, you cannot just show up at a gate and change to a different flight. You would have to change flights before you clear security.