India, Oct. 28 -- When IndiGo flight 6E-1703 lifted off from Kolkata's Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport at 10pm on Sunday, October 26, it appeared at first to be just another of IndiGo's 2,200 daily departures. Yet this particular flight made history - it marked the first direct commercial service between India and the People's Republic of China in almost five years.

The Airbus A320neo aircraft, flying from Kolkata to Guangzhou, was packed with 176 passengers, signaling the strong pent-up demand for travel between the two Asian giants. Regular air connectivity between India and China had been suspended since early 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic had initially grounded flights across the globe, but it was the deadly clash in ...