India and China are resuming direct flights on Sunday after a five-year suspension as relations between the two countries improve.
Direct flights between the two countries were suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and did not resume as Beijing and New Delhi engaged in prolonged tensions following a border skirmish.
India’s largest commercial carrier, IndiGo, will operate the first daily flight from India’s eastern city of Kolkata to Guangzhou in mainland China. The flight is scheduled to depart at 10pm IST.
“Direct flights between China and India are now a reality,” wrote Chinese embassy spokesperson Yu Jing on X.
Additional flight services from India’s capital, New Delhi, to Shanghai and Guangzhou are set to begin in November, according to reports.
The resumption is part of the Indian government’s “approach towards gradual normalisation of relations between India and China”, the Indian embassy in China had said earlier this month. New Delhi added that the resumption of flight will boost “people-to-people contact”.
The resumption comes after Indian prime minister Narendra Modi visited China in September for the first time in seven years to attend a regional security forum, which was part of efforts by the two countries to normalise ties.
Relations between China and India plummeted in 2020 after security forces clashed along a disputed border in the Himalayan mountains. Four Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the worst violence in decades, freezing high-level political engagements.
In October last year, both sides reached an agreement on patrolling arrangements along the Line of Actual Control. This year, both nations resumed the Mansarovar Yatra and ended the visa freeze for tourists.
The thaw in the relationship between the two Asian giants was aided by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on India in response to its oil purchases from Russia and Washington's longstanding trade war with China.
Since being hit by tariffs, New Delh has sought to diversify to markets such as China, Latin America and the Middle East. According to India's commerce ministry, New Delhi's imports from China surged to more than $11bn last month, up more than 16 per cent compared with September 2024.
