Airport chauffeur service in India: met at the exit, tracked from take-off, priced before you land

The procedure

What happens between the aircraft door and the car door

The chauffeur is positioned at the arrivals exit when the aircraft lands, not when the booking said it would land: the desk tracks the flight from departure, and if the airline moves the schedule, the pickup moves with it at no charge. The chauffeur holds a board with the passenger's name, or the company's name where the traveller prefers, and carries a phone the passenger has the number of from the confirmation. At international terminals the wait runs through immigration, baggage and customs, and the sixty minutes inside the fare are counted from the moment the wheels touched down, so a slow queue at the Bureau of Immigration desks is not the passenger's cost.

From the exit, the chauffeur takes the trolley, walks the passenger to the car, which is either in the pick-up lane where the airport allows a short halt or in the car park a few minutes' walk away, loads the luggage and confirms the destination that is already on the booking. Water and chargers are in the car. The route is the one the desk has agreed for the time of day, and a live location link can be sent to whoever is waiting at the other end.

Departures run in reverse: the coordinator checks the airline's check-in cut-off and the road that morning, and the pickup time on the chauffeur's message carries a margin the passenger can trust. At Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad the chauffeur knows which terminal each airline uses on the day, which matters more than it sounds.

Arriving in India

What first-time visitors should know before the chauffeur meets them

Most visitors arrive on an e-Visa or a regular visa and clear the Bureau of Immigration desks, which at Delhi T3 and Mumbai T2 can take from a few minutes to well over an hour depending on the bank of flights that landed with yours; the chauffeur waits regardless. Baggage follows; then customs, where the green channel is for passengers with nothing to declare and the red channel for those carrying goods or currency above the published allowances, and the chauffeur is positioned beyond that point. Indian mobile SIM cards are sold in the arrivals hall at the main airports against a passport and the visa; the chauffeur's number on the confirmation works on WhatsApp as well as by call, so a passenger without a local SIM can still reach the car from the terminal's wireless.

Currency is not a concern for the transfer itself, since the fare was paid when the booking was made, and tolls are itemised at cost afterwards rather than collected in the car. Passengers arriving late at night will find the airports fully staffed and the roads quiet; a night allowance applies to journeys between 10 pm and 6 am and is shown on the fare before payment. For visitors continuing by train, the railway stations page covers the platform-exit pickups, and for those continuing by road the city-to-city page prices the expressway journeys from the airport as fixed fares.