Beijing, March 30 IndiGo airline launched its daily flight from Shanghai to Kolkata on Monday, boosting air connectivity between India and China.
The IndiGo 6E flight was launched by the Indian Consul General in Shanghai, Pratik Mathur.
Speaking to the IndiGo management team on the occasion, Mathur highlighted the positive momentum, appreciated the growing confidence and enthusiasm expressed through the booming air connectivity and the resurgence of economic links between India and the region, the Indian Consulate in Shanghai said in a post on X.
Indian airlines such as IndiGo and Air India have begun connecting Shanghai with major cities like New Delhi and Kolkata.
Kolkata is now the second Indian city, after New Delhi, linked with Shanghai, China's commercial capital.
Air China plans to launch a direct flight between Beijing and New Delhi on April 21, according to officials.
The new route connecting Shanghai-Kolkata is also expected to promote the development of India's northeast, Mathur said.
Kolkata and Shanghai have traditionally enjoyed very strong relations, with Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore visiting the city three times in 1913, 1923, and 1931, he said.
The new connectivity will further encourage people-to-people ties between eastern India and eastern China, led by the two major cities, Kolkata and Shanghai, respectively, he said.
India and China resumed flights between different cities of the two countries in October last year after a five-year freeze in relations.
IndiGo operates flights from Kolkata to Guangzhou and Delhi to Guangzhou.
Chinese airline China Eastern has also resumed flight operations from Shanghai to Delhi.
The flight services between the two sides were suspended following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. They were not restored due to the over-four-year border standoff in eastern Ladakh, which ended in October last year.
The process of normalizing India-China relations followed two summits between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan, Russia, in 2024, followed by a second meeting on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin last year.
Besides flights, India and China have also initiated a series of measures to normalize their relations.
In July, India resumed granting tourist visas to Chinese nationals.