Airports: Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport

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I flew with Air India. The security from Kathmandu airport was crazy! The most security I’ve ever dealt with. They check your tickets more than normal…that’s fine. But then they bus you to the airplane on the tarmac and once you’re there they have everyone wait in a line to board the plane. One at a time each passenger has their carry-on bags checked. When it was my turn, the security guard literally pulled out half of my stuff, rummaged about, and then asked me to move on leaving me to reorganize all of my shit. Not the nicest experience. Only thing is, I’m not sure if this is every Indian airline, Indian government regulation, or just Air India.

Flying into New Delhi is pretty easy. It actually won an award for best airport in 2017 for airports servicing over 40million people per year. Before flying to India, make sure you have your visa printouts ready – you’ll have to show them at the service counter in the airport you’re leaving from. Once you get to Indira Gandhi International Airport, follow the overhead signs down to customs.

At the customs area foreigners will have to head to the right side through openings in the glass partitions. There are many lines here with blue signs above the security booths describing what visas are being processed there. There are also several lines for E-Visas, so find the the shortest line (sadly this didn’t work for me – as experienced line goers will know, the shortest line is not always the fastest line. Some security officers are faster at processing and sometimes people have paperwork issues slowing down the process. Sometimes there are lines with 2 officers processing while another line only has 1. Anyway…best of luck to ya 🙂

After customs it is easy to follow signs to transfers or baggage claim. I headed to baggage claim to exit the airport. My initial plan was to walk a few kilometers to the main road and then hail a bus going near my hostel in Greater Kailash. As I stand there looking at my phone a taxi driver comes up and asks where I’m headed. “Just looking at how to get to the main road.” He tries to tell me how far it is and tells me he can take me to my hostel for 250inr ($3.50usd). But I tell him clearly that ain’t happening and that I’m walking to a bus. But this guy was actually quite nice and told me that I should just head to the metro, it’ll be easy.

New Delhi Airport Metro Station

Here is the New Delhi metro map – click the image to go to their official website and find a zoom in version

If you are headed straight to New Delhi city center then you are all set from Terminals 2 and 3. I’m not sure what line the Metro station at T2 and T3 is on, but in order to get to the red line I needed to go straight to New Delhi and transfer there and come back down. However, there was a better way for me if I went to the T1 Metro station.

The metro line is so clean and easy to use

If you keep your boarding pass, then you can get a free ticket on the airport shuttle bus. About a 5-10 minute ride from T2 to T1. Once at T1 it’s another 5-10minute walk to get to the station, but this station was so much quieter and had way less people. It only cost me 40inr ($0.60usd) to go to my stop. About a 20 minute ride and it was an easy navigation to my station. From there I walked a few kilometers to my hostel stopping a bit for some kolfi (Indian ice cream) and some fruit 😀

There is even an electronic screen to show the exact stop you’re at and heading to next

Easy Airport

This was my first time at Indira Gandhi International. I think it is one of the easiest airports to figure out. I even saw a sign that said city bus just near the airport exit, despite the taxi driver saying there are no buses (never believe anything an Indian says when selling you something).

Good luck and have fun! I hope you found this info helpful and making your trip easier. Help me out by visiting my Support Me page and subscribing below to get more great content 😉 Thank you very much!

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