Summary

  • Direct flights between India & China have been severed, with no plans to restore them, reflecting strained relations.
  • The lack of scheduled flights is due to geopolitical tensions, with both countries engaging in economic warfare.
  • China has urged India to restore flights, but India remains uninterested due to ongoing border clashes.

While BRICS is sometimes heralded as a sign of alternative non-Western economic cooperation, the two largest members are working to sever their economic ties with each other. China
and India are by far the largest members of the BRICS block and have no regularly scheduled flights between them (by contrast,
India has added more US destinations
).

The two giant neighbors cut flights between each other during the COVID-19 Pandemic
, and since then, they have not been restored. Reuters reports that India has ‘shunned’ China’s calls to restore flights as recently as June 2024.

Background of poor Sino-Indian relations

The lack of flights between India and Mainland China is astounding (although there are direct flights to non-mainland China, like Hong Kong). Both India and China are home to around 1.4 billion people each – around a third of humanity. On top of that, they are neighbors. Both have more people than the continent of Africa and easily more than the twin continents of the Americas. And yet, there are zero direct flights. The reason for the dearth of flights is geopolitical.

IndiGo Airbus A321neo shutterstock_2328533913

Photo: Kevin Hackert | Shutterstock

The relationship between China and India is long and complicated. The countries have a disputed border and there are somewhat frequent lethal border clashes. Border clashes in 2020 saw dozens dead as border guards bludgeoned each other to death (firearms are forbidden on the border to prevent the situation from escalating out of control).

During the Cold War, China crushed the local Indian army in the brief Sino-Indian War of 1962 as the world was distracted by the Cuban Missile Crisis. India may have been unaligned, but it also found itself caught up in an under-reported and mostly forgotten parallel Cold War between the USSR and China after the Sino-Soviet split. Current warm Moscow/Beijing relations notwithstanding, Russia/USSR and China have also long been historic rivals and/or enemies.

Now, the two giants of Asia are engaged in economic warfare, with India racing to decouple the Indian economy from China. India has all but banned Chinese people from visiting India (by making the visa application process strenuous and then just denying the applications at the end of it). It has also banned notable key Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE. India has made it difficult for Chinese companies to invest and hundreds of popular Chinese apps (like Tiktok) have been banned.

The termination of Indian-Chinese flights

Direct flights between India and China peaked in December 2019 (the eve of the pandemic) with 539 scheduled flights led by airlines like IndiGo
, Air India
, China Southern, China Eastern, Air China, and Shandong Airlines. 371 of these flights were Chinese and 168 were Indian airlines. For reference, there were
287 India-US flights scheduled for the month of August
.

China_Southern Cargo Boeing 747

Airlines flying between India-mainland China:

Flights 2019:

Flights 2020:

Flights 2024:

China Eastern Airlines:

1,532

244

0

China Southern Airlines:

1,458

187

0

Air China:

726

129

0

Air India:

522

56

0

Shangdong Airlines:

410

364

0

IndiGo:

360

146

0

Other:

171

77

6

Total:

5,179

1,197

6 (private airline)

Those flying between the two Asian titans now need to transit through Hong Kong or hubs like Dubai and Singapore. IndiGo operates seven flights weekly between Delhi and Hong Kong, while Cathay Pacific also offers flights to India. An informative video made by PolyMatter claims China Eastern flight 564, on March 20th, 2020, was the last direct flight between the countries.

However, data provided by Cirium (an aviation analytics company) suggest there may have been some more. The last route of any significance between them was operated by Shangdong Airlines, which flew between the southern Chinese city of Kunming and India’s Mumbai with 7-24 monthly flights between January 2021 and May 2021.

Air China Cargo Boeing 777

Photo: Bjoern Wylezich | Shutterstock

Data from Cirium shows that the only direct flights scheduled between India and China for 2024 were six flights each way between Mumbai and Guangzhou operated by private Nigerian airline Air Peace in January.

India is uninterested in restoring flights anytime soon

According to Reuters, China is pressing India to restart direct passenger flights after a four-year halt (Reuters also states that thousands of troops remain mobilized on each side since the 2020 border clashes). China finally lifted all COVID restrictions in early 2023. The lack of Indian-Chinese flights may be one of the most under-reported and consequential developments in modern commercial aviation airline routing.

Collapse of Indian-Chinese flights:

Pre-pandemic:

539 monthly scheduled flights

Current:

0 monthly scheduled flights

Pre-pandemic flight duration:

Approx. 6 hours

Current flight duration:

10.5+ with connections

Pre-pandemic flight cost:

$350-$550

Current flight cost:

$650-$1,280

“Several times over the past year or so, China’s government and airlines have asked India’s civil aviation authorities to re-establish direct air links, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, with one saying China considers this a ‘big issue.'” – Reuters

Air India 787 landing

For four years, passenger routes between India and China have been severed (although direct cargo flights still operate). A ‘senior Indian official familiar with Indian-China bilateral developments’ told Reuters that “Unless there is peace and tranquility on the border, the rest of the relationship cannot move forward.”

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