Two and half years after India allowed scheduled commercial flights, India and China are all set to resume flights. The first indications that this is happening came on November 19, 2024 when the Ministry of External Affairs release talked about air connectivity being one of the many points up for discussion between the two countries.
The government stopped all international flights from March 22, 2020 which was followed by a complete lockdown from March 25, 2020. Air India had landed in Wuhan as part of special operations to bring back Indians from the epicentre of the pandemic.
While air bubble arrangements with over 20 countries saw flight operations resume partially, full operations resumed only in March 2022. However, the Galwan clash between China and India in June 2020 had deteriorated the relations between the two countries and flight connectivity had not resumed even on the other side of the pandemic.
The diplomatic solution came in over the last few months which included deescalation across multiple points. This has now paved the way for flights to resume between the two countries.
Which were the flights between India and China?
Air India has been a historic operator between India and China from the Indian side, operating five times a week to Shanghai. IndiGo entered the space in September and October 2019, eventually operating daily to Chengdu from Delhi and to Guangzhou from Kolkata. The airline had also announced flights to Chengdu from Mumbai starting March 2020, but never saw the light of the day.
From the Chinese side, Delhi and Mumbai were connected to Beijing by Air China, China Southern Operating to Guangzhou from Delhi, China Eastern operating to Kunming from Kolkata, and Beijing from Delhi and Shandong Airlines operating to Kunming from Delhi.
Another carrier offered flights, which was Rwand Air which operated to Guangzhou from Mumbai as part of its Kigali – Mumbai – Guangzhou routing. The Chinese carriers operated 42 weekly flights as of January 2020, shows the data shared by Cirium – an aviation analytics company.
New flights or the same?
Airline networks have changed drastically from pre-COVID times to now. Airlines have not resumed routes which they operated pre-COVID but have returned to those destinations albeit from different points. IndiGo, for example, resumed flights to Hong Kong but from Delhi instead of Bengaluru from where it operated pre-COVID. Air India is today a privatised entity with ambitions to grow and have feed. It may want to have more pounds of flesh on the China market than what it had as a government entity.
IndiGo on the other hand is also on an expansion spree adding over 100 planes since pre-COVID times to its fleet and expects the XLRs next year and wide body A350s in 2027. With narrowbody operations possible, IndiGo may want to corner sizable rights, but a combined Air India with the four A321LRs from Vistara will be planning for expansion too. Will a resurgent SpiceJet also want to enter the fray or will Akasa Air battle it out for rights which aren’t exhausted like say to few points in the Middle east.
Fourth time lucky?
India and China connectivity has been unlucky from the Indian side. IndiGo started operations in September 2019, only to scale down towards the end of February and close in March 2020, less than a year after starting. IndiGo was so bullish about its China operations and even started a call centre in Guangzhou. Jet Airways started operations to Shanghai and onwards to San Francisco in 2008, only to see the economic crisis following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The airline pulled out in January 2009, less than a year after starting operations. In 2013, SpiceJet became the only private carrier in the country to have operations to mainland China when it launched flights to Guangzhou from New Delhi. The flights were launched in February 2013 and coincided with the rising oil prices – a challenge for newer and longer routes. The flights to Guangzhou were pulled out in February 2014, barely a year into operations.
Tail Note
There is a long way to go, but a step has been taken in the direction of connectivity. Like quite a few markets, China too is slow when it comes to approvals and needs a lot of paperwork. Today we are where the governments will talk about the possibility of resuming flights. As and when the agreement is reached, it will take further to start the services. This would only be bad news for Thai, Malaysian and Singaporean carriers along with Cathay Pacific which have been the carriers of choice for connectivity between the two countries.