Passengers arriving on an Air India Express flight from Singapore faced confusion at Chennai Airport on Wednesday after being mistakenly dropped at the T4 domestic terminal instead of the international terminal.
Anantha Raman, one of the passengers, shared a video on X showing stranded passengers at the domestic terminal with no staff to assist them. “It’s organized chaos here,” he remarked, adding that passengers were eventually made to go through another security check before being transferred to T2 for immigration and customs formalities.
According to The Times of India, the error caused significant delays, with one passenger noting that the process took over an hour. The airline raised a breach call upon realising the mistake, halting passengers who were attempting to leave without completing necessary immigration and customs clearance. They were subsequently transported to the international terminal via shuttle services.
Airport sources explained that the shuttle operator mistakenly treated the flight as domestic since it arrived at the T4 terminal, which typically handles domestic operations.
Air India Express routinely parks its international flights at T4 for operational convenience. The incident was attributed to a lack of communication between the airline and shuttle service operator.