Air India seeks US pre-clearance facility at Delhi, Mumbai airports from MEA

According to a TOI report by Saurabh Sinha, Air India Ltd (AI) has asked the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to facilitate having US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility at big Indian airports like Delhi and Mumbai. America-bound passengers can clear all immigration, customs and agriculture inspections required by the US at these facilities during departure itself. On landing in US, they can simply collect their baggage and walk off the arrival airports like domestic flyers.

While Dublin's Shannon airport has had the US pre-clearance travel facility for years, AI began to feel the need when Abu Dhabi also got this facility recently. Jet Airways — the only other Indian carrier that flies (though one-stop) to US — is an equity partner of Abu Dhabi's Etihad and has plans to fly from 23 Indian cities to Abu Dhabi, feeding huge traffic from India to Etihad's west-bound flights.

The US pre-clearance is a big draw for flyers to America as it allows them to avoid serpentine queues at US airports. "The Jet-Etihad combine is weaning away passengers from our nonstop flights to US, especially as Jet feeds Etihad's flights to US from large number of Indian cities. Dubai and Doha airports are also going to have the US pre-clearance. In such a situation, Delhi and Mumbai — from where AI has nonstop flights to US — need a similar facility for AI to remain competitive and take on the growing might of the Gulf carriers here," said a senior AI official.
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