India and China likely to start direct flights from May

Kailash mountain

India and China are discussing the resumption of direct flights between the two countries from May ahead of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra this summer, government officials told Moneycontrol.

In January, the two sides agreed to resume direct flights and the pilgrimage after five years, looking to build on the thaw in ties following the disengagement in Eastern Ladakh after a four-year standoff in the border area.

"The two governments are looking to restart direct flights from Delhi and Lucknow and Kolkata to Lhasa from May 2025 and final approvals from both sides are expected by the end of March," a government official said.

The two governments are in the process of finalising a bilateral agreement for flight operations but discussions are on with IndiGo, Air India and Tibet Airlines for flights from India to Lhasa Gonggar Airport, the official said.

Once a bilateral agreement is signed, airlines from both countries would be asked to add flights and plan their operations.

The two sides are also discussing resuming flights from India to Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu and Kunming but this would be done in the second half of the year, another official said.

Emailed queries to external affairs and civil aviation ministries and IndiGo and Air India remained unanswered till the time of publishing.

The thaw 

In January 2025, the neighbours agreed to resume direct commercial flights after five years following a meeting between after India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri and China’s foreign minister Wang Yi in Beijing.

The two countries had reached a consensus "in principle to resume direct air services," with officials expected to hammer out details "at an early date", the external affairs ministry said after the meeting.

It also said China had permitted the resumption of the pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, a popular shrine to the Hindu god Shiv, which was halted since 202o following the coronavirus outbreak.

May, June and October are the busiest times for Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims as the weather is pleasant, visibility high and temperatures comfortable, officials said.

Mount Kailash is in the Ngari Prefecture of the  Tibet Autonomous Region of China.

India and China operated more than 500 direct flights in a month before the operations were halted in January 2020 following COVID.

Most flights were operated by Chinese airlines such as Air China, China Eastern and China Southern. IndiGo and Air India also flew to China directly.

Before the pandemic, Air China operated five flights a week to Delhi from Beijing and four to Mumbai from Beijing.

China Southern Airlines operated double daily flights to Delhi from Guangzhou, China Eastern Airlines operated eight times in a week to Kolkata from Kunming and a daily flight to Delhi from Shanghai. Shandong Airlines operated four flights a week between Delhi and Kunming, data shared by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, shows.

From the Indian side, IndiGo operated a daily flight between Kolkata and Guangzhou and Delhi to Chengdu, while Air India operated five times a week to Shanghai from Delhi.

In October, after several rounds of talks, India and China agreed to troop disengagement and patrolling along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh.

Misri announced the agreement on October 21 and said would lead to a resolution of the issues that arose in 2020.

On October 23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed the agreement on patrolling and disengagement along the LAC during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan in Russia.