India’s apex hospitality Association - Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) has submitted a representation to Shri Jyotiraditya Scindia, Hon’ble Union Minister of Civil Aviation, highlighting problems faced by inbound tourists with filling the online Air Suvidha form and has requested for its immediate withdrawal. With several passengers having missed their flights to India, the Association has appealed for the Ministry to at least provision physical forms as an alternate to the online forms. Having learned about the concerns from guests who had booked hotels in the country, FHRAI has put forth their pain points to the Ministry. Quite a few of the travellers were completely unaware of the requirement until they arrived at the check-in. Travellers also complained about the tediousness of filling the online form with difficulties faced in navigating the site and in uploading documents.

“We back the Government’s initiative for ensuring the safety of passengers flying to the country. However, sometimes guests miss the flights due to being unable to submit the form in time, and eventually, they have to cancel hotel room booking. There are many other near miss instances. Since many travellers book flights through third-party online sites or apps which do not inform about this requirement, passengers get caught off-guard. This in itself causes confusion and then filling out the online form which is not as easy to navigate while hoping to not miss the flight makes it an even more chaotic process. In the interest of our guests as well as for anyone travelling to India, we request that the Government either immediately withdraws the mandatory Air Suvidha form filling or at least provision physical forms as an alternate,” says Mr Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, Vice President, FHRAI.

Inbound travellers have voiced out about being unaware of this mandatory requirement and getting to know about it while at the check-in counter. The paucity of time, confusion and difficulty in filling the form have been creating chaos at airports and hampering arrivals to the country.

“Filling the Air Suvidha form through mobile devices is a cumbersome exercise, requiring high-speed internet. Passengers have voiced difficulty in uploading passports and vaccination certificates on the online portal. Uploading images of passports and vaccination certificates in specified file sizes and formats for those without high-speed internet is time consuming. The Indian tourism and hospitality industry cannot afford to lose potential tourists dropping plans of travel to India. We believe that there could be better and more viable alternative solutions that can ensure self-declaration formalities. Keeping in mind the difficulties faced by in-bound travellers, we request the Government to allow some alternate options to fill the Air Suvidha form in the interest of all the in-bound travellers to India,” concludes Mr Kohli.