India, China to resume direct flights in sign of closer ties

India and China are set to resume direct flight connections as soon as next month, people familiar with the negotiations said, as the world’s two most populous countries seek to reset their political ties.

Airlines in India have been asked by the government to prepare flights to China at short notice, with a possible official announcement as soon as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at the end of August in China, said the people, asking not to be identified because the negotiations are ongoing.

Passenger flights between India and China were suspended after the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing travelers from the two neighboring countries to pass through hubs like through Hong Kong or Singapore. The renewed push to rebuild a direct link comes at a time when India’s relations with the US have come under considerable strain, after US President Donald Trump doubled tariffs on Indian goods to 50% as a penalty for its purchases of Russian oil.

On Monday, Air India announced it would suspend its direct link to Washington, DC, next month, citing “operational factors” as the reason. The carrier still flies to New York and San Francisco.

Diplomatic ties between the two Asian heavyweights hit a low point in 2020, when border clashes left 20 Indian fighters and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers dead. India recently allowed tourist visas for Chinese nationals after years of curbs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the SCO summit in Tianjin starting Aug. 31, where he may meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

India’s aviation ministry, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, and the country’s press information bureau did not respond to requests for comment. The exact timing of any flight resumption remains fluid, and talks might still hit a snag, the people cautioned.

Before the suspension, Indian carriers including Air India and IndiGo, as well as Chinese airlines such as Air China, China Southern and China Eastern ran services between key cities of the two countries. A resumption is likely to see both Air India and IndiGo restarting flights to China, the people said.

Air India and IndiGo did not respond to emails seeking comment.

India and China had first agreed in January to resume direct flights, before relations between the two countries cooled again amid India’s limited war with Pakistan. The two countries then announced a takeup of direct connections once more in June, though without any visible progress.

Plans to rebuild direct links only gained pace in the past two weeks, and the airlines involved have also been informed about the proposal, the people said.

The number of direct flights between the US and China has dwindled by nearly three-quarters since 2019 to a scheduled 9,726 this year, based on data from Cirium. Airlines plan to offer just more than 3 million seats on such flights in 2025, up 15% from 2024 levels.

In July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Beijing and New Delhi should work towards mutual trust and "win-win" cooperation, after talks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, state news agency Xinhua reported.

China and India should "adhere to the direction of good-neighborliness and friendship" and "find a way for mutual respect and trust, peaceful coexistence, common development and win-win cooperation", Wang said, according to Xinhua.

The two foreign ministers met in Beijing as the two rivals seek to repair ties following a 2020 clash on their border.

The world's two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia, and their 3,500-kilometre (2,200-mile) frontier has been a perennial source of tension.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China's President Xi Jinping met for the first time in five years later that month, agreeing to work on improving relations.

New Delhi is concerned over Beijing's increasing presence in the Indian Ocean, seeing the region as firmly within its sphere of influence.

Another source of tension is the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader India has hosted since he and thousands of other Tibetans fled Chinese troops who crushed an uprising in their capital Lhasa in 1959.

The 90-year-old Dalai Lama says only his India-based organisation has the right to identify his eventual successor.

China insists that it would have final say on who succeeds the Tibetan spiritual leader. 

Agencies