China Southern Airlines announces resumption of flights to India ahead of Xi-Modi meet

China Southern Airlines on Saturday announced that it will resume regular passenger services on the Guangzhou-New Delhi route from September 21, restarting the service after a six-year suspension.

With the resumption, the airline will operate more than 100 weekly flights across eight round-trip routes in South Asia, the carrier said.

China Southern Airlines, headquartered in Guangzhou in China’s southern Guangdong province, is one of the country’s major carriers.

The carrier’s announcement coincides with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India on Saturday to attend the BRICS summit and hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on further improving bilateral relations.

The flight services between India and China were suspended following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and were not restored amid the over four-year military standoff between the two countries in eastern Ladakh, which ended in October last year.

The resumption of flights is part of the gradual normalisation of India-China relations following two meetings between Modi and Xi in 2024 and 2025.

Modi and Xi met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024, followed by another meeting during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin in 2025.

Following the improvement in ties, several Chinese and Indian airlines resumed flight services between cities in the two countries, including the Beijing-New Delhi route.

In March this year, IndiGo launched a daily flight between Shanghai and Kolkata, further improving air connectivity between India and China.