Beijing is pressuring India to resume direct passenger flights after a four-year hiatus, but New Delhi is refusing as a border issue continues to strain relations between the world’s two most populous countries, officials said.
India-China ties have been tense since June 2020, when the largest military conflict in decades on their disputed Himalayan frontier killed 20 Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers. Thousands of troops remain mobilized on both sides.
Since the confrontation, India has made it difficult for Chinese companies to invest, banned hundreds of popular apps, and severed passenger links, but direct freight flights between the Asian giants continue to operate.
Direct flights would assist both economies, but the stakes are bigger for China, whose overseas travel is still recovering from the Covid-19 outbreak, while India’s aviation sector is booming.
According to two people with direct knowledge of the topic, China’s government and airlines have pushed India’s civil aviation authorities several times in the last year to re-establish direct flight links. One person stated that China considered this a “big issue.”
“We hope the Indian side will work with China in the same direction for the early resumption of direct flights,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement to Reuters last week, adding that resuming flights would benefit both countries.
India-China bilateral developments
However, a senior Indian official familiar with India-China bilateral developments said of Beijing’s wish to resume flights: “Unless there is peace and tranquillity on the border, the rest of the relationship cannot move forward.”
Indian airlines are in talks with New Delhi, while Chinese carriers are speaking with their governments about resuming direct flights, according to Pieter Elbers, CEO of Indigo, India’s largest airline.
The Indian ministries of external affairs and civil aviation did not reply to calls for comment.
Beijing has regularly denounced India’s increased inspection of Chinese enterprises since 2020. Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer, advised India’s government earlier this year that “confidence building” measures were required since component suppliers hesitated to set up shop in India due to compliance and visa concerns.
Cirium data shows direct flights between India and China peaked in December 2019, with 539 planned flights by IndiGo, Air India, China Southern, China Eastern, Air China, and Shandong Airlines.
Chinese airlines scheduled 371 of these flights, doubling India’s 168.
Increased Time for Flights
Flights were suspended four months later as the pandemic worsened. Except for a few Covid repatriation flights, they have yet to resume, despite India removing Covid restrictions on international air routes a year later and China lifting all Covid travel restrictions in early 2023.
Travelers must now change planes in Hong Kong, which has its own aviation regulator and border controls from the rest of China, or in hubs such as Dubai or Singapore.
This has increased the time it takes to fly from India to China from less than six hours to upwards of ten, giving business to carriers such as Emirates, Singapore Airlines, and Cathay Pacific, including lucrative through traffic to the United States.
The recovery in Chinese foreign travel is slowing due to increased costs and problems obtaining visas for the world’s top spenders on international tourism and airlines.
In a recent interview in Dubai, Indigo’s Pieter Elbers stated: “When the time is right and the governments reach an agreement on how to proceed, we will assess the market.”
IndiGo operates seven weekly flights on the Delhi-Hong Kong route, from which passengers can connect to mainland China.
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson stated that while direct flights between India and China appear to be a significant potential market, forces are at play that are “beyond our level.”
Source: Bangkok Post