New Delhi to Haneda – Sharing my repatriation flight experience during Covid19 times

This valuable experience has been shared by Yash Bhatnagar so that other community members know about this beforehand and can prepare accordingly for the travel. Do not forget to share with your friends, family, and with someone who might need this info.

Please read the experience below:

This is to explain my journey from India to Tokyo during COVID times, wish it is of help to others who work/ stay in Japan, and are stranded in India for them to plan their travel.

We flew on 16^th July through JAL flight from New Delhi to Tokyo, the process to fly was very tedious, as India is under the list of countries where entry into Japan is ban due to COVID, I would categorize this into three parts, preparation for Flying, Flying and Post landing.

Preparation for Flying – it includes the following steps

-You need to be a long term work VISA holder of Japan or a PR holder, You need to approach the Embassy of Japan in India and explain them the reasons why you want to fly, you have to have a valid reason to enter Japan largely on humanitarian ground.

Eg: kids studying in Tokyo, separated families, sickness, etc. business reasons, Eg: returning to working in Tokyo is not considered a good reason as most of this could be done over a video call. You need to send mail to Embassy of Japan in India at re-entry-a@nd.mofa.go.jp . For us, kids education in Tokyo was considered for approval we also attached the school certificates

-Once the application is approved, they would ask you to contact a local Japan contact Phone Numbers ,where you would need to call and explain them the reason why you want to enter Japan(Japanese speaking preferred), you need to explain them the reason to enter japan, once they are convinced that your reason is valid then they would tell you that tentatively you could enter Japan and you should talk to Embassy now, you should ask the name of the person you spoke to

-With this tentative verbal approval and the name of the person you should mail the Embassy of Japan, telling them about your conversation, name of the person you spoke to and in case they are convinced they would send an approval mail which they did in our case, they also asked us to send a self-declaration form.

-Seeking the approval, we now approached the airlines that are flying repatriate flights, for Japan these are Air India and JAL. We approached JAL for their prescheduled flight on 16^th July.

-Before JAL issue the tickets they would ask for the approval mail and would also crosscheck this with the Embassy themselves and issue tickets to you, they are issuing both one way and two-way tickets and there is only a difference of 5K, so I preferred two-way tickets with a one-year validity.

Flying

We reached the airport three hours in advance and we were almost the last few people to check-in, which means people came almost four hours in advance

When we entered Delhi airport our luggage was being scanned at the entry itself and we were handed over a few documents which we had to fill even before we enter the airport, It was like a self-declaration form.
We filled the form and entered the airport; one filled form was handed over to the person next to the entrance door and other at immigration
After this we went to the check-in counter, the process was standard and after completing this we went to the immigration and security and then to our boarding gate
Airports ,though, were less crowded with most of the restaurants closed, we could get coffee at Starbucks, the time it took was more than normal due to the documentation involved
Inside the flight, we were handed over face shields for each and PPE kits for adults, if you want to buy PPE kits for kids you can buy at 500 INR.
Inside JAL flight there was no social distancing and all the seats were mostly occupied and there was normal seating.(Not sure it was only this flight or others also experienced the same ? Can be an area of improvement if that’s the case.)

On Landing in Haneda

In-flight we were again handed over few documents for self-declaration which is better to be filled in flight itself
On landing in Haneda, we came out of the flight normally and then were asked to wait for the quarantine formalities to start Once the quarantine formalities for the previous flight got over, our flight passengers were taken to another hall where the quarantine formalities started, families were given preference,I did not see any other queues since we were family the quarantine formalities for us got over in 15-20 mins, the staff validated the documents we had filled in flights in terms of our local address, email address, contact number and asked if the person who has to come to pick us is already arrived or not, the staff could manage English but still of Japanese communication is there it is always faster.
After the quarantine formalities we were directed to do the COVID test, the test was quick and they took a swab sample from the nose, little painful especially for kids, so better to prepare them.
After the COVD test, we went for the immigration formalities and since there were not many passengers again this process was quick.
The immigration officer did not give back the passport to us but to one of the support staff who took us to an office next to the immigration office and we were asked to wait outside.
We thought this will not get over soon but we had to wait for almost two hours for the check to be completed, not sure what check they did, in between officer will come and ask for information like we were asked for the kid’s school certificate which was one of the primary reason we had cited in our application to the embassy as our reason to return, so better to keep a printout of the certificate handy.
On asking why it is taking so long, we were told that validations are going on, the Japanese citizens were given priority to exit.
After this check, the officer came and told that finally our approvals are done and now we could enter Japan, what a relief it was, we came out collected our luggage, did custom which was normal as always and finally came out and boarded the TAXI and came home,
the COVID test result came in 4 days via E-mail and we all were tested negative

End of post

For a similar post on from Japan to India, please refer to an article below contributed for the community by Kirti Jain.
Article here: https://indojapanpulse.com/2020/05/an-indian-shares-repatriation-flight-experience-for-the-community

If you think you have some experiences which might help the community in some way, please do not hesitate to reach us on contact@indojapanpulse.com to the Facebook community page.

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