legionnaire

A US Citizen (does not have OCI) of Indian origin has obtained a 6-month entry visa from the Indian consulate in New York. The email from the Indian consulate advised booking an Air India Vande Mataram flight. It was silent about other airline bubble arrangement.

They are booked on a United EWR-BOM flight. Will they be allowed to board this United Airlines air bubble flight from EWR to BOM?

legionnaire

Answering my own question.

Checked Timatic, United notices for India. Talked to a United gate agent at EWR (via UA customer support).
"Passengers with a visa (excluding medical visas issued on or before October 21, 2020, and tourist visas) issued by India are allowed to board United flights. "

Indian consulate in NY pointed us to this section of the page:
"(iii) In case any foreign national not covered by categories mentioned in (i) above is required to visit India urgently due to any family emergency, the Indian Missions/Posts are authorized to issue single entry X-Misc visa for appropriate period. In such cases, the Indian Missions/Posts may take a decision on grant of visa on a case to case basis on the merits of each case."

and a bit more searching led to this (Page 27 of the PDF under section XI Entry ('x') visa. Point # 12):

"Foreign nationals applying for visa for a purpose, which is not specifically covered under any visa category, may be granted ‘X-Misc’ Visa for appropriate duration. Such a Visa may be granted only with single entry and for the specific duration taking into account the purpose of visit. If the visa is granted for a period of stay exceeding 180 days, the foreigner will have to register himself/ herself with the FRRO/ FRO concerned within 14 days of arrival. This visa will be non-extendable and non-convertible to any other type of visa."

UA advised pax arrive 3 hrs before scheduled departure of first flight (In this case a BOS-EWR-BOM RT) as documents will be checked there.

garykung

Why don't I say this - if the passenger can qualify for an OCI card, get it before travel. The OCI card will reduce all questions to the minimal.

Everything else is not a guarantee even fully compliance with TIMATIC.

legionnaire

They do. There isn't enough time before travel to get it.

garykung

Then the passenger will be at his/her own risk.

GUWonder

Don't worry about the OCI thing to make the trip to India.

UA is allowing US citizens with Indian Entry visas issued this quarter to fly to India in recent weeks. There are more than a handful of Indian couples that have children born in the US who have moved back to India with the US citizen child going to India on the 6-month Entry visa.

Air India would be perhaps less fussy, as they will have seen this way more than any US or European carrier. And AI flights may be less likely to have their flights/flight passengers banned from flying to India due to Covid-19 than non-Indian carriers.

legionnaire

Thanks. Helps.

Now to find a thread about how people reduce risk in-flight on a 8000mile non-stop. I mean at some point people have to use the rest room, eat.

Keyser

the indian consulate is pushing people to fly on ai on the government's insistence....its not mandatory so don't worry about it....flying on ua any other airline allowed to fly into india is perfectly fine....

Keyser

i've taken 3 international flights over the last coupe of months....2 flights have been from del to nyc while the 3rd was to dxb....as long as you are careful, wear your mask, sanitize your hands after using the bathroom, taking off the mask only to eat & drink, you will be perfectly fine....people were being respectful of other people's boundaries & maintaining social distancing pretty well on all my flights so i never felt i was at risk at any given point in time....