India and China resume direct flights after 5 years
Direct flights between India and China have resumed as relations between the countries begin to thaw.
IndiGo flight 6E 1703 from Kolkata landed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Monday with around 180 passengers.
Flights between the two countries were first suspended during the Covid pandemic in early 2020 and have not resumed after a deadly conflict in the disputed Himalayan border region escalated tensions.
But the two countries have been steadily rebuilding their relations and reached a landmark agreement on border patrols last year.
In a statement announcing the development earlier this month, the Indian government had said that the resumption of direct flights would “facilitate people-to-people contact” and help “gradual normalization of bilateral exchanges”.
This is part of a series of developments that show the gradual normalization of relations between the neighbours.
In August, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for the first time in seven years and met with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Earlier the same month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had visited India and discussed “de-escalation, delimitation and border issues” with officials in Delhi.
In July, India also resumed issuing visas to Chinese tourists.
According to travel data provider OAG, the two countries were operating at approx. 2,588 scheduled flights Before services were suspended in 2019.
At Kolkata airport on Sunday evening, airline staff lit brass lamps to mark the resumption of direct flights as IndiGo passengers checked in.
It was a “very important day for India-China relations”, Qin Yong, a senior Chinese consular official, told reporters at the airport.
Passengers expressed their happiness that the time required to reach China was now shorter.
Krishna Goyal, who said he was traveling to China for business, told news agency ANI that direct flights will increase trade and relations between the countries.
“Previously we had to change two or three flights [to reach China]. “We would go from Kolkata to Singapore and from there to China,” he said.
China Eastern Airlines will launch a flight connecting Shanghai and Delhi next month. The spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in India stated in his post on X that it will fly three times a week starting from November 9.
Additional reporting by Neyaz Farooquee in Delhi
