China Eastern Airlines will resume direct flights between Shanghai and Delhi from Nov. 9. This comes after a gap of five years, as the two countries seek to rebuild their ties that came under severe strain following the border standoff in eastern Ladakh in 2020.
The airline said that tickets for the route are now available for sale.
Initially there will be three weekly flights on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The flight from Delhi, MU564, will depart at 7:55 p.m., arriving in Shanghai at 4:10 a.m. the following day.
Similarly, the flight MU563 from Shanghai Pudong International Airport will depart at 12:50 p.m. and arrive at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, at 5:45 p.m. local time.
This comes a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) summit in China’s Tianjin city. India’s IndiGo Airlines and China Eastern will be the first two major airlines to resume direct flights between the two South-Asian countries, according to reports.
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.
Not just the Chinese airline, even IndiGo, in a statement earlier this month said it will resume services to Mainland China, connecting Kolkata to Guangzhou (CAN) with daily, non-stop flights, starting Oct. 26.
Subject to regulatory approvals, IndiGo will start direct flights between Delhi and Guangzhou. It will use Airbus A320 neo aircraft to operate the services.
“We are delighted to announce the resumption of daily, non-stop flights between India and mainland China. We are proud to be amongst the first to resume direct connectivity to China from two points in India… With this very important step, we are looking at introducing more direct flights into China,” IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers said.
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