Flight services have resumed between India and Hong Kong | Photo credit: Veankanni Raj B
The center is ready to find comments from airlines about their tight experience of operating in China before restarting any direct flight between the two countries, industry sources said. Business line.
Business line He was the first to report on April 8, 2025, that delegation conversations were heroes between India and China in “forms and media” to restart direct air services.
In particular, there has been no direct air connectivity between India and China since the beginning of 2020, after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The situation deteriorated after military clashes broke out between the two neighbors in the Galwan Valley in the Ladakh region.
Before Covid, the airlines on both sides operated flights to many destinations, such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nueva Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Flight services have resumed in the leg between India and Hong Kong, without continental China.
Air passage rules
“The next meeting is expected to take place the last part of this month or beginning of next month,” industry sources said.
“A key agenda element will be the problem of air ticket regulations imposed by China in Indian airlines.”
Consistently, India is likely to press for greater freedom for its carriers to determine their own demand -based air rates.
Conversations, according to industry sources, will also play the expected entrance of low Chinese cost operators in the Indian market, which is considered a great opportunity to boost tourism in both countries.
According to the sources, both parties hope to revive tourism and business trips by facilitating restrictions and increasing direct flights between the two countries.
“After the second round of conversations, the delegations, which also consist of regulators, will discuss the assignments of slot and other operational arrangements,” the sources added.
Last week, several sources said Business line That India and China have begun the process to resume direct flight operations by accepting the first “rationalization procedures” for airlines operations.
The two countries have agreed “in principle to resume direct air services.”
Rationalization process
“Multiple interested parties are involved in general conversations that include problems such as visas. Specifically on the side of civil aviation, conversations are located in a cordial environment, and both parties were heard the process in the” “process. Business line.
“The rationalization of processes such as the allocation of slots, the renewal of land management contracts and other procedures has begun.”
According to the sources, the rationalization exercise would give an impulse to the industry to begin operations, since the early system was “cumbersome and slow.”
“Once the process is completed, then it will depend on the airlines for the operations ready to do at the destination airport by implementing adequate labor and ensuring regulatory approvals,” the sources said.
In addition, the sources said that the rationalization process will not change the contours of the existing bilateral air rights agreement.
For its part, the national airline industry is optimistic about the resumption of flight services between the two countries.
Talking with Business lineSeveral executives representing different airlines said that flights to China used to experience healthy charge factors, sometimes up to 90 percent.
Posted on April 20, 2025