IndiGo plans Delhi–Shanghai flights, betting on rebound in India–China travel: Report

India’s largest airline IndiGo plans to launch direct flights between New Delhi and Shanghai as early as late March or early April, subject to regulatory approvals, China’s state-run Global Times reported on Friday.

With the launch of direct flights, IndiGo would become the third carrier to operate the route since India and China restored air services last year.

If approved, the service would add to existing direct links operated by Air India, which resumed Shanghai–Delhi flights on February 1, and China Eastern Airlines, which restarted Shanghai–Delhi operations in November.

IndiGo had earlier resumed flights between Kolkata and Guangzhou in October 2025, becoming the first Indian carrier to restart direct services to China after a five-year hiatus.

Chinese officials cited by Global Times said the Kolkata–Guangzhou and Delhi–Shanghai routes have together carried about 54,000 passengers so far this year.

Guangzhou and Shanghai host sizeable Indian business communities, the officials added.

Pieter Elbers, CEO of IndiGo, in his earlier interview to Global Times expressed his confidence over the size of the air travel market between India and China as “one-third of the world's population is living in these two countries”.

He also said the airline was evaluating services from additional Indian cities to more destinations in China.

The route expansion comes amid signs of easing tensions between Asia’s two largest economies.

Commercial flights were suspended in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and were not restored amid a prolonged military standoff along their disputed line of actual control (LAC).

The process of normalisation of bilateral relations followed two summits between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Kazan in Russia in 2024 and a second meeting on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin last year.

India resumed issuing tourist visas to Chinese nationals in July, after a suspension that began in 2020, and both sides have since announced people-to-people measures including the resumption of direct flights and religious pilgrimages.