Flights between India and China finally resume after five-year hiatus

Flights between India and mainland China were suspended in early 2020 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and resumed on Sunday, when an IndiGo flight departed from India's Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata, pictured. (Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Direct flights have resumed between India and China after a five-year hiatus, the latest sign of warming relations between the world’s two most populous countries.

IndiGo flight 6E 1703 departed from India’s Kolkata airport at 10pm on Sunday, touching down in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou some three-and-a-half hours later.

Flights between India and mainland China had been suspended since early 2020 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and remained halted after a deadly clash on their disputed Himalayan border escalated tensions.

The two nuclear-armed neighbors have since been working to reduce frictions, reaching an agreement last fall on military disengagement along their disputed border and resuming high-level dialogue for the first time in five years.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in India, Yu Jing, confirmed the flight, writing in a post on X: “Direct flights between China and India are now a reality.”

State-owned China Eastern Airlines is also set to resume flying between Shanghai and Delhi on November 9, according to Yu, and IndiGo said it is launching a new Delhi–Guangzhou service on November 10.

The Indian government said the return of direct flights will “facilitate people-to-people contact” and help “the gradual normalization of bilateral exchanges.”

The flight Sunday evening had 176 passengers on board, director of the Kolkata airport, Pravat Ranjan Beuria, told Indian news agency ANI.

Krishna Goyal, a passenger onboard, described it as “a very happy moment” after five years of navigating multi-leg journeys, often via Singapore, for business.

“Earlier, we had to change two or three flights,” he told ANI.

The direct route reconnects Kolkata’s thriving textile and jute industries with the wholesale markets of southern China by air at a time when the two Asian giants are bolstering trade ties in the face of US Donald Trump’s tariff threats.

The two have also faced heightened Western scrutiny over ties to Russia as the war in Ukraine persists. Earlier this month, Trump claimed India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to stop importing Russian oil, an issue that has strained ties between the two key trading partners – but India’s foreign ministry later said it wasn’t aware of any assurances made by the Indian leader.

Meanwhile, India and China relations continue to make strides.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first visit to China in seven years in August, which Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reciprocated with a trip to India during the same month.

In his August visit to China, Modi said India was “committed” to taking their countries’ relations forward “on the basis of mutual trust and respect,” and referenced their bettering of ties, including an easing of tensions along their disputed Himalayan border.

Laura Sharman, CNN

CNN’S Chris Lau contributed to this report.