Short answer: your flight is fine; your evening needs adjusting. Online check-in fails for boring reasons far more often than alarming ones - a passport field the website cannot parse, a visa the system wants human eyes on, a codeshare segment, a name with a space the form dislikes, or plain website overload. The fix in nearly every case is the airport counter, which checks you in without a fee. What the failure does change is your airport timing: the plan 'web check-in at home, arrive relaxed' becomes 'arrive early, queue once'.
Read the error before retrying. The failure message is the diagnosis. 'Document verification required' means the counter will check your passport and visa - no amount of retrying changes that, so stop and plan to go early. A generic timeout or a spinning page means technical trouble - switch from the website to the airline's app, or from the phone to a laptop, and it often goes through. A message about the flight or booking not being found is the one to take seriously: pull up the booking in manage-booking with your PNR and confirm the flight still shows, because that error can signal a schedule change you have not been told about.
The systematic retry order. First, re-check the inputs: PNR exactly as on the ticket, surname as booked (watch the spaces and spelling), and the check-in window - international web check-in on Indian carriers typically opens 24 hours before departure, so a check-in attempted 30 hours out fails by design. Second, switch platforms: app instead of browser, browser instead of app. Third, strip the extras: try checking in without seat selection or meal adds, which are common failure points. Fourth, try one passenger at a time if the group booking chokes on one traveller's details.
The counter is the backstop, not the punishment. Indian carriers check international passengers in at airport counters free of charge - IndiGo's counters close 75 minutes before international departures and it asks international travellers to report four hours ahead. With a failed web check-in, take that advice literally: be at the airport on the early side, walk straight to the full-service counter (not bag-drop), hand over passport and PNR, and let the agent do whatever the website refused to. If the agent also struggles, they escalate to a supervisor who can override - but overrides take time, which is why the early arrival matters.
The two failures that are not boring. One: your passport validity or visa is genuinely the blocker - if the destination needs six months' validity and yours is short, no counter fixes that on the day. Two: the booking itself has a problem - a schedule change, a split PNR, an unpaid segment. Both surface at check-in precisely because that is where documents meet the manifest. Everything else - the timeouts, the rejected forms, the app crashes - is theatre, and the counter ends it.
How TripKeeper pre-empts this. On our trips, web check-in is done by us the day before, and when a booking refuses it, we are on the phone with the airline that evening - not at the counter discovering why. If you would like check-in day to be boring by design, send us a trip-planning inquiry.
A Miranda House graduate and lawyer who traded courtrooms for slow travel. Cheshta travels with the batches we host ourselves, with a soft spot for travelling alongside elders.
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