Passengers of the first direct flight between India and China in five years touched down yesterday, after Asia’s giants lifted a long-term air travel suspension as they cautiously rebuild relations.
IndiGo Flight 6E1703 from Kolkata touched down in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou shortly before 4am, officially resuming nonstop air links that had been suspended since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent geopolitical tensions.
The neighbors and world’s two most populous nations remain strategic rivals competing for regional influence, but ties have eased gradually since a deadly Himalayan border clash in 2020.
Photo: AFP
The Indian government said the resumption of flights would boost “people-to-people contact” and aid the gradual normalization of bilateral exchanges.
Passengers aboard the first flight — among them many Indians in search of cross-border business opportunities — spoke at Guangzhou airport about the convenience of the resumed links.
“It was such a smooth and easy, lovable trip,” said Rashika Mintri, a 44-year-old interior designer from Kolkata.
“I could come again and again,” she said.
Warming relations with Beijing come as India’s ties with key trade partner Washington falter, following US President Donald Trump’s order imposing punishing 50 percent tariffs.
Trump’s aides have accused India of fueling Russia’s war in Ukraine by buying Moscow’s oil.
There are already regular flights between India and Hong Kong, while additional services from the capital New Delhi to Shanghai and Guangzhou are to begin next month.
Abhijit Mukherjee, the captain of the flight yesterday, said that without the new nonstop flights, passengers would need to travel through other airports, such as Bangkok or Singapore.
“It adds up,” the 55-year-old pilot said of the transfers.
The direct flight he had just completed was “very smooth,” he said, holding a bouquet of flowers presented to him upon arrival.
India’s eastern port city of Kolkata has centuries-old ties with China dating back to British rule, when Chinese migrants arrived as traders. Indo-Chinese fusion food remains a beloved staple of the city’s culinary identity.
“It’s great news for people like us, who have relatives in China,” said Chen Khoi Kui, a civil society leader in Kolkata’s Chinatown district of Tangra. “Air connectivity will boost trade, tourism and business travel.”
India runs a significant trade deficit with Beijing, relying heavily on Chinese raw materials for industrial and export growth.
The thaw between New Delhi and Beijing followed meetings between their leaders in Russia last year and in China in August.
The resumption of direct flights is a “first step” in repairing ties, said passenger Athar Ali, a 33-year-old businessman from India, as he waited to check in for IndiGo’s flight returning the aircraft to Kolkata.
Earlier this month, soldiers on each side exchanged gifts of candy on the Hindu festival of Diwali as a gesture of goodwill.
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