Indore (Madhya Pradesh): A UK passenger, who was carrying an e-visa and had arrived from Dubai at the city’s Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport on Saturday, was deported back to Dubai on Monday by Air India’s flight. The city’s airport doesn’t have the facility to check e-visas.
This is for the fifth time that a passenger has landed from Dubai with an e-visa, and only in one case was a passenger allowed to leave the airport after getting special permission.
As per official information from Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport, Air India flight AI-904 arriving from Dubai to the city landed here at 5:40 pm on Saturday. When the visa documents of all passengers were checked, it was found that a foreign national had an e-visa instead of a manual visa, and the immigration team stopped him. According to officials, the passenger is James Michael Griffin (58), a British citizen. The passenger is from an IT company and had arrived here for some work related to his company. Immigration officials informed him that the e-visa is not valid at Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport, as there is no system for checking e-visa, so he would not be allowed to leave the airport and would have to board the flight back to Dubai on Monday. Till then he would have to stay at the airport.
The passenger said that he was not aware that the e-visa facility is not available at DABH Airport. He also called some people known to him, but no solution could be found. Since then the passenger was kept in a room at the airport itself. On Monday he was deported back to Dubai from the city by flight AI-903 at 17.10 hours.
Passengers and airlines should be vigilant
At the time of booking the ticket a passenger must check whether e-visa facility is available at the destination airport or not. TK Jose, chairman of the MP Chapter of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) said that it is the duty of the airline also. Before allowing anyone to board a flight, the airline must inform the passenger whether an e-visa facility is available or not at the destination airport.
Following the rollout of direct flights from the city to Dubai on July 15, 2019, so far, 5 passengers have arrived here with e-visa. Of them, 4 were deported back to Dubai, while one passenger was allowed to get into the country on special permission.
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