China Southern to restart Guangzhou-New Delhi flights from September 21
China Southern Airlines will resume Guangzhou-New Delhi passenger services on September 21, restoring its India route after six years.
China Southern Airlines will resume regular passenger services on the Guangzhou-New Delhi route from September 21, restoring its India operations after a six-year suspension. The carrier said it will operate more than 100 weekly flights across eight round-trip routes in South Asia once the service restarts.
The announcement comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to New Delhi for the 18th BRICS Summit at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Xi left Beijing on Saturday and is scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Modi later in the day. His delegation includes Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of its General Office, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the CPC Political Bureau.
Xi is expected to put forward proposals on Global South cooperation at the summit, building on positions he advanced at the SCO Summit in Bishkek. BRICS has grown into a central platform for coordinating economic policy among major emerging economies, shaping common positions on global governance and carrying the interests of the Global South into multilateral institutions. Its agenda covers development, finance, technology, trade and people-to-people exchanges.
The flight resumption adds to a gradual rebuilding of direct air connectivity between India and China, which had been suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic and the tensions that followed the Doklam and Galwan standoffs. Air China restarted its Beijing-Delhi service in April, the second route to India resumed by a Chinese carrier, after China Eastern Airlines brought back its Kunming-Kolkata link on April 18.
Indian carriers have moved in parallel. IndiGo began a daily nonstop Kolkata-Shanghai service on March 30, following its reinstatement of Kolkata-Guangzhou flights and the start of operations from Delhi. The resumption of direct flights between the two countries was confirmed by the Ministry of External Affairs.