No need to get an Indian visa for a four-hour stopover

There are advantages to being able to enter the country where you are changing planes

Air India

Q. My daughter is travelling to Thailand with a change of planes in India (four hours' wait in transit). Will she need a visa for this short time? She does not intend to leave the airport. Marie Duncan

A. I infer that your daughter is travelling on Jet Airways or Air India via Mumbai or Delhi. If so, then the same rules apply as for transit at almost all the world's big aviation hubs, except for those in the US.

You do not need to be entitled to enter the country (usually either a visa or a "friendly" passport that doesn't need one) so long as all you intend to do is to change planes – and that you have permission to enter the country of your final destination. The Middle Eastern hubs, and indeed Heathrow, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt, are full of people in transit "airside", i.e. not passing through immigration and customs.

Having said all that: there are advantages to being able to enter the country where you are changing planes. If there is a long layover then it is easy and rewarding to go "landside" for some sightseeing. I have happily done so in hubs such as Amsterdam (where the train from the airport to the centre takes only 16 minutes) and Singapore – where the authorities actually lay on free city sightseeing trips for passengers with stopovers of four hours-plus. You are unencumbered, because your luggage is being transferred, and so you can explore freely.

There is a more practical reason: the risk of disruption. Suppose the flight from the UK is delayed in reaching India, and the connection is missed. Had your daughter permission to enter the country, then being put up (at the airline's expense) would be straightforward; without permission, the usual solution is to bed down on the floor of the transit lounge until the problem is solved.

However, with an Indian visa fee of nearly £100 and Kafkaesque red tape, I suggest your daughter doesn't bother to apply.

Click here to view Indian tours and holidays, with Independent Holidays.