Extra benefits for frequent flyers

If you are frequent business flyer, your immigration and customs clearance is going to become quicker and hassle free.

If you are frequent business flyer, your immigration and customs clearance is going to become quicker and hassle free.

HT Image

The Centre has cleared an ambitious project where frequent business flyers will be registered with the customs and immigration department so they can be given clearance quickly. Such passengers would be allotted separate
counters while flying abroad as well after landing in the country.

Currently, during heavy air traffic time, passengers have to spend over one-and-a-half hour to clear customs, immigration and other checking formalities before boarding a flight or moving out of the airport.

The Central Board of Excise and Customs has begun a passenger profiling exercise, which is the first step towards the project.

A senior Customs official in Mumbai, requesting anonymity, said all this would be part of the project called Advance Passenger Information System (APIS).

To make the system foolproof and tamper free, the Customs department would use biometric device to keep fingerprints records of frequent business flyers. “We might also go for such passengers’ retina scanning,” the official said.

The customs and immigration department would also know in advance whenever the registered business flyers would fly abroad or within the country.