Clear signs of a thaw in relations between India and China have raised hopes that air connectivity between the world’s two most populous countries will normalize, although regular passenger traffic between the two countries has increased since early 2020. Flights are not in operation. Resuming direct flights and normalizing visa issuance – demands that China has been making over the past few years – are expected to come up in talks during External Affairs Minister Vikram Misri’s visit to China starting today. Chinese and Indian airlines will be watching closely.
In September 2024, the resumption of direct passenger flights between India and China was discussed in a meeting between India’s Civil Aviation Minister K. Ranmohan Naidu and China Civil Aviation Authority Director-General Song Zhiyong. Reuters reported in early June that China was pressuring India to resume direct air links between the two countries, but India was resisting.
In November, the idea of resuming direct flights was raised during a meeting between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Rio de Janeiro during the G20 summit. The talks come less than a month after India and China announced a border security deal on October 21, a clear sign of easing tensions. Two days later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the BRICS summit in Russia.
The lack of direct air connectivity and strict visa restrictions between India and mainland China meant that airlines from both countries lost potential passenger numbers. Currently, passenger traffic between the two countries exclusively through connecting hubs in South and Southeast Asia is less than half of what it was in 2019. Still, the volume remains insignificant, and several airlines from other countries have realized this and are leveraging capital. On occasion.
According to an analysis of passenger data provided by Global Aviation Analytics, the total number of flights between India and China (both directions) from January to October 2024 was over 460,000, compared to the corresponding 10 months of 2019. This is a significant decrease from nearly 1 million people. A company discovered by Sirium. From January to October 2019, direct flight passengers accounted for almost 46% of the total passenger flow between the two countries.
Despite the overall slump in numbers, airports in Singapore, Vietnam and even Bangladesh have managed to increase passenger numbers between India and China compared to 2019. This is mainly due to the strategies of their respective home country airlines to focus on such air connections. However, other hubs have not yet caught up or are struggling.
Singapore, Bangladesh and Vietnam benefit
In the first 10 months of 2024, more than 98,000 passengers traveling between India and China transited in Singapore, an increase of 16.6% compared to the same period in 2019. This can be attributed to the fact that Singapore Airlines Group offers connections to various points in China with a large number of airlines. Airports in India via city-state. Singapore is now the second-largest connectivity hub for Indian and Chinese passengers after Hong Kong, moving up from third place in 2019.
In Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, which saw just over 4,500 passengers connect India and China in the first 10 months of 2019, Bangladeshi airlines US-Bangla Airlines and Biman Bangladesh are taking advantage of the opportunity. That number jumped to more than 30,000 in the same period in 2024.
Notably, Vietnam’s two major airports, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, which had almost no passenger traffic connecting India and China in 2019, will be closed in January 2024, thanks to Vietnamese airlines Vietjet Air and Vietnam. From October to October, it served as a transit hub for nearly 20,000 passenger flights between India and China. Airlines are densifying their networks to facilitate connections through Vietnam.
Where other connection hubs stand
Although Hong Kong Airport is not technically considered a Chinese airport due to Hong Kong’s special autonomy and different visa regimes than mainland China, it remains a major transit hub connecting India and mainland China. . The number of transit passengers in Hong Kong from January to October 2024 was approximately 173,000, a decrease of 12.5% compared to the same period in 2019.
With two airports, Thailand’s capital Bangkok was the second-largest airline transit hub between India and China in 2019. From January to October 2024, it ranked third, with the number of passengers passing through the two airports dropping by about 31 to nearly 93,000. Percentage from 5 years ago. Thai airlines, primarily Thai AirAsia Group, are striving to increase their share in this market by increasing capacity on flights from Indian airports to Bangkok.
In Kuala Lumpur, the number of passengers connecting India and China decreased significantly compared to 2019. Malaysian airlines’ capacity on routes between Kuala Lumpur and both India and China has fallen below pre-pandemic levels. From January to October 2024, Kuala Lumpur’s traffic volume between India and China was just over 32,000 people, down more than 44% compared to the first 10 months of 2019.
Colombo saw more than 43,000 passengers connect between India and China from January to October 2019, a significant drop of more than 82 per cent in the comparable period of 2024. This was primarily due to aircraft capacity constraints affecting SriLankan Airlines’ network. According to data from Cirium, Sri Lanka operated just 290 flights between Colombo and Chinese airports between January and October last year, a sharp drop from more than 1,200 flights during the same period in 2019.
Opportunity for Chinese and Indian airlines
Normalization of air connectivity is likely to benefit airlines in both India and China, but before the pandemic, Chinese airlines had a dominant share of the direct flight market between the two countries. Perhaps Chinese airlines think they have more to gain. It is therefore not surprising that China is pushing India to allow direct air connectivity to resume and normalize visa issuance to Chinese nationals.
China claims to be issuing a large number of visas to Indians, but it is reported that the number of visas issued to Chinese nationals in India has plummeted from about 200,000 in 2019 to a few thousand by 2024. It is being In January 2024, the Chinese Embassy in Delhi stated: In 2023, more than 180,000 Chinese visas were issued to Indian nationals.
As of December 2019, airlines in China and India are operating 539 scheduled direct flights between the two countries per month, with a cumulative total of over 1.25 million seats. Indian airlines (IndiGo and Air India) operated 168 of these flights, or about 31 per cent. The remaining nearly 70% of flights were with Chinese airlines including Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Shandong Airlines.
However, airline industry watchers say this does not necessarily mean that Chinese airlines will continue to dominate with such a large share once direct flight connections are resumed. Between 2019 and now, there have been many changes in the Indian aviation industry. Air India is now privatized and well-capitalized, with ambitions to grow rapidly, including in international markets. IndiGo, India’s leading domestic airline, is now more focused than ever on expanding its international network.
