Airports: The great Indian experience D.S.R. Krishna I have a few experiences: =E2=80=A2 It=E2=80=99s apparent that Customs officials do not want the trave= llers,=20 especially NRIs, to pay customs and make every attempt to ward you off. I wa= s=20 made to wait for almost 1.5 hours on one of my trips from Singapore (I was=20 not an NRI at that time) for insisting on paying customs duty on the video=20 camera that I had got. Now I have to carry the piece of paper =E2=80=94 rece= ipt of=20 the customs duty =E2=80=94 to show that I have paid the customs duty. =E2=80=A2 Facilities like X-ray machines and conveyor belts are so few that=20= it takes=20 at least two hours to get the baggage, that too smeared with chalk. Expensiv= e=20 suitcases smeared with chalk as they have no other way of identifying goods=20 imported. I was out of the airports in under 5 to 6 minutes elsewhere in the= =20 world. =E2=80=A2 Most of the countries have stopped stamping the passports on exit,= saving=20 valuable time for checking in. =E2=80=A2 Insufficient public transport, including the local taxis outside t= he=20 airport. More often the taxi fellows fleece you. Even Bombay which used to=20 have good taxi drivers has gone bad off late. =E2=80=A2 Almost all flights into India are at unearthly hours. That is main= ly=20 because there are few transit passengers and India not being a transit=20 destination, despite geographically well located. =E2=80=A2 Airports like Dubai have fantastic facilities like free landing ri= ghts and=20 lower fuel. This leads to lower cost of travel and higher traffic.=20 This in turn will lead to high sales of other goods in the duty free shops. =20 =20 =20