China Eastern to commence Delhi to Shanghai flight from Sunday

Chinese airline China Eastern is set to begin its Delhi-Shanghai flight from Sunday, days after IndiGo’s flight to Guangzhou from Kolkata, marking the resumption of the flight services between the two countries after a gap of five years.

The China Eastern flight will leave Delhi at 8 pm and arrive in Shanghai early Monday.

It will leave Shanghai at 12:30 pm and reach Delhi by evening 6 pm. The flight will operate on alternate days.

India’s Consul General in Shanghai, Pratik Mathur, who plans to greet the passengers coming from Delhi by the China Eastern flight, said that the resumption of the flight services will usher in a new age of greater connectivity and encourage stronger people-to-people ties between India, the fastest growing economy, and the business hub of the eastern China Region led by Shanghai.

This will help to bring India closer to the fast-growing Eastern China Region, which also includes the AI hub of Hangzhou and trading hubs of Yiwu and Keqiao, the textile capital of China, he told PTI here.

IndiGo will begin its daily flights from Delhi to Guangzhou from November 10.

The airline has formally kicked off the resumption of flights on October 26, operating the Kolkata to Guangzhou flight.

The flight services between the two sides were suspended following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. They were not restored in view of the over-four-year border face-off in eastern Ladakh, which ended in October last year.

India-China relations plunged to their lowest point since the 1962 war following the Galwan Valley clashes in June 2020. After a series of diplomatic and military talks, the two sides withdrew their troops from several friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

In October last year, the two sides firmed up a disengagement pact for Depsang and Demchok, the last two friction points.

Days after the agreement was finalised, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks in Kazan in Russia and took a number of decisions to improve the ties.

In the last few months, the two sides have taken a series of measures to repair the ties, including the resumption of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra and the resumption of flights.