Airlines to Share Your Travel Booking Data with Indian Gov. Agencies before Your Travel to or from India

After implementing the new carry-on baggage limit for flyers with effect from the first day of 2025, the government of India is enforcing another mandate for airlines. The sensitive data of international travelers flying into and out of India will compulsorily be shared with the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), an agency of the union finance ministry, starting April 1, according to the Passenger Name Record Information Regulations, 2022.

The onus of sharing passenger details (listed below) with Indian Customs falls on airlines and their codeshare partner operating flights to and from India. Any instance of non-compliance will incur penalties to them. The Passenger Name Record Information Regulations, which Indian government brought in August 2022, is now being enforced strictly. All airlines flying to India are required to register with the National Customs Targeting Center-Passenger. The registration deadline is January 10, 2025.

Usually, passenger data is available with the Indian customs and immigration authorities only after international flights depart from or arrive in India. Pre-departure and pre-arrival risk profiling of international travelers is the objective of Indian government requiring airlines to share passenger data. This move is aimed at detecting, investigating and prosecuting those charged with such offenses as tax fraud, money laundering, illegal trade, and trafficking.

What passenger data airlines have to share with Indian Customs

Some airlines are already sharing the below information of passengers booking flight tickets to India from USA and other countries, in a prescribed format. Effective from April 1, 2025, it is mandatory for all the airlines to share 19-point passenger data at least 24 hours before a scheduled international flight takes off or lands so that high-risk departures and arrivals could be detained and interrogated on time.

1. PNR record locator code
2. Date of reservation/issue of ticket
3. Date(s) of travel
4. Traveler name(s)
5. Frequent flyer and benefit information (free tickets, upgrades, etc.)
6. Number of travelers on a PNR
7. All available contact information (email, telephone number, mobile number)
8. All available payment/billing information
9. Travel itinerary
10. Travel agency/travel agent
11. Code share information if any
12. Split/divided information (when one PNR contains reference to another PNR)
13. Travel status of passenger(s) (including check-in status)
14. Baggage information
15. Ticketing information including ticket number, ticket type, Automated Ticket Fare Quote
16. Seat number
17. Any previously collected passenger information, such as passport number, date of birth, gender
18. All historical changes to the PNR
19. General remarks including Other Service Indicated (OSI), Special Service Indicated (SSI), Supplemental Service Request (SSR) information

“To be shared on a case-to-case basis with the law enforcement agencies of India or any other country,” the passenger name record information would be saved in a secure system for 5 years. Any unauthorized access to or use of the passenger information shall be prevented as the government of India has specified strict privacy and protection guidelines. “The processing of such sensitive passenger details as race/ethnic origin, religion or philosophical faith, political opinions, health, sexual life or orientation shall not be permitted,” as per the regulation.

After expiration of the stipulated 5-year period, the passenger data shall be “disposed of by depersonalization or anonymization through masking out the relevant information which can serve to identify directly the passenger to whom the passenger name record information relates, provided that such depersonalized or anonymized information may be unmasked when used in connection with an identifiable case, threat or risk for the specified purposes”.

“With the Passenger Name Record Information Regulations in effect, India entered the league of 60 countries, including the United States, that have a strict policy in place for airlines to share sensitive passenger data with customs, immigration and border control authorities,” said the chief travel information officer of Indian Eagle, a leading international air-ticketing agency and the most trusted travel-booking partner of Indians in America.