Direct flights between India and China have resumed as relations between the countries appear to be thawing.
IndiGo flight 6E 1703 from Kolkata landed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Monday, carrying about 180 passengers.
Flights between the two countries were first suspended during the Covid pandemic in early 2020 and did not restart after a deadly clash in a disputed Himalayan border area escalated tensions.
But the two countries have been steadily rebuilding relations, and last year they reached a landmark agreement on border patrols.
The Indian government had said the resumption of direct flights would “facilitate people-to-people contact” and help “the gradual normalisation of bilateral exchanges” in a statement announcing the development earlier this month.
It is part of a series of developments that indicate a gradual normalisation of ties between the neighbours.
In August, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China for the first time in seven years, meeting President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. Earlier that month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had visited India and discussed “de-escalation, delimitation and boundary affairs” with officials in Delhi.
In July, India had also restarted issuing visas for Chinese tourists.
According to travel data provider OAG, the two countries operated around 2,588 scheduled flights in 2019 before services were suspended.
At the Kolkata airport on Sunday evening, airline staff lit brass oil lamps to mark the resumption of direct flights as IndiGo passengers checked in.
A senior Chinese consular official, Qin Yong, told reporters at the airport that it was a “very important day for the India-China relationship”.
Passengers expressed happiness that the time taken to reach China would now reduce.
Krishna Goyal, who said he was travelling for business to China, told ANI news agency that direct flights would boost trade and relations between the countries.
“Earlier, we had to change two or three flights [to reach China]. We used to go to Singapore from Kolkata and from there to China,” he said.
China Eastern Airlines is set to launch a flight connecting Shanghai and Delhi next month. It will fly three times a week from 9 November, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in India posted on X.
Additional reporting by Neyaz Farooquee in Delhi