Kuwait Travel visa

This question has been answered correctly by Burhan Khalid, however I had a strange experience while travelling and thought it would be worth Sharing here. I had the scanned copy in hand and I reached the airport only to find that the Airline would refuse to board me.

The reason given is that, for Indian travellers, Kuwait airways (and a few other airlines) are taking extra precaution and has devised a system whereby on deposit of original visa at the airport, a message is sent to the Indian airport and only if there is such a confirmation, the passenger is allowed to travel. Apparently this system is created to avoid unscrupulous agents who send people with just a scanned (fake) copy of a made up visa which resulted earlier in many people who had to be deported upon arrival in Kuwait.

Here is a link to the rule being shown in Air India website.

In my case the partner had not deposited the original till about 1 hour prior to my arrival and hence it was an extremely bad situation, I however managed to travel with personal guarantee from a few airline staff at Kuwait end, but this is a special situation for Indians travelling to Kuwait (not sure of other places).

So prior to your travel, please ensure that visa is deposited well in advance and that the airline sends a message to your port of departure.