Direct flights between New Delhi and Guangzhou to resume in November

A long-awaited daily direct flight service between New Delhi and Guangzhou will begin in November, a move experts deemed is a symbolic gesture of thawing ties between the two countries.

India's budget Airline IndiGo announced on Saturday that it will offer a daily direct flight between New Delhi, India's national capital, and Guangzhou starting Nov 10, while flights from Kolkata to Guangzhou will resume on Oct 26.

"The resumption of operations between two of the world's most populous nations presents immense potential for cultural exchange and economic collaboration," Vinay Malhotra, Head of Global Sales at IndiGo, said in a statement.

"With this launch, IndiGo connects China to its vast domestic and growing international network, via Guangzhou. We are confident that this will contribute towards the acceleration of opportunities in trade, investment, tourism, and even education between the two countries, while reinforcing our commitment to connect India to the world," Malhotra added.

The airline will operate Airbus A320 aircraft on this route, connecting between India's national capital and Southeast Asia's major cultural and business hub. Tickets for the route are now available on the IndiGo website.

Air India, India's national carrier, also plans to launch direct flights between Delhi and Shanghai before the end of the year, a senior Air India official said.

Before the pandemic, Air India used to operate four nonstop direct services a week from Shanghai to New Delhi, and onward to Mumbai.

India's Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the resumption of direct flights between India and China indicates that the relationship between the two countries is improving.

"This is, of course, in line with the growing trend towards normalization in the relationship between India and China," Jaiswal said last week during a media briefing in New Delhi.

Soon after the announcement, the IndiGo airline had announced daily flights between Kolkata, an eastern Indian city, and Guangzhou starting Oct 26.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said during a press briefing in Beijing on Oct 9 that the move facilitates friendly exchanges of over 2.8 billion Chinese and Indian people.

Despite China remaining India's largest trading partner, there have been direct flights between India and China since 2020. Indian students studying in China, traders, tourists, and experts welcomed the move as it will facilitate travel, trade, tourism, and cultural and academic exchanges.

"It is a diplomatic and economic milestone. It is more than an economic decision, a symbolic gesture of thawing ties and recognition of mutual dependency," said Shanky Chandra, head of the Department of Chinese Studies at Doon University.

The reopening of this channel offers renewed possibilities for people-to-people exchange, trade facilitation, and regional integration, Chandra said.

Exorbitant airfare prices have been a persistent burden for a large number of Indian students studying at Chinese universities, researchers engaged in collaborative projects and tourists.

For Khushboo Yadav, a student from India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, studying in China, direct flights can ease financial pressure.

Before the pandemic, IndiGo operated another a route connecting Chengdu to Bangalore. The revival of this route would directly benefit the large student community and strengthen relations between India's technology hub and China's major IT hub, Ishu Jain, an Indian IT professional based in Chengdu, said.

Indian trader Shranik Chopra, who takes part in the Canton Fair every year, said direct flight services would reduce travel time, travel expenses and ease the ordeal faced by Indians at transit airports.

In 2019 there were some 2,588 scheduled flights between the two countries — averaging seven one-way flights a day. New Delhi was the focal point for services from Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to OAG Aviation, an aviation data firm and world's leading provider of digital flight information.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.