Air India has mounted an urgent lobbying campaign asking India’s civil-aviation and foreign ministries to request over-flight rights from Beijing for a tightly controlled air‐corridor across China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The carrier, jointly owned by Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, currently has to skirt Chinese and Pakistani airspace on many Europe- and North-America-bound routes because Islamabad closed its skies to Indian airlines in April after a flare-up along the Line of Control. The detours add as much as three hours of flying time, pushing fuel burn up by 25-29 percent and translating into an estimated US $455 million annual hit to the airline’s bottom line. Company executives told Indian officials that regaining a direct Great-Circle routing could be the difference between restoring daily non-stops such as Delhi-Washington and keeping them mothballed.
![Air India presses New Delhi to seek PLA clearance for Xinjiang sky-corridor]()
The request is politically fraught. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) controls the Hotan–Kashgar–Urumqi flight information region, which abuts sensitive training grounds and nuclear test ranges. Foreign airlines rarely win access except on case-by-case humanitarian grounds. Still, Air India argues that its request is purely commercial and notes that China has repeatedly urged South Asian neighbours to deepen “people-to-people ties” under the Belt and Road framework.
From Beijing’s perspective, granting passage would help Chinese airports capture additional transit traffic and reinforce its narrative of post-pandemic openness. But it might also set a precedent for other Indian and Western carriers, raising surveillance burdens for Chinese air-defence units. Diplomats say any deal will require reciprocal concessions, possibly including Indian approval for extra Chinese frequencies or faster airport slots.
For multinationals, the outcome will directly affect travel budgets and route planning between India and North America or Europe. A positive decision could shave up to four hours off connecting itineraries via Delhi or Bengaluru and help restore confidence in the resiliency of South-North aviation links that bypass Russia. Corporate mobility teams should monitor bilateral talks over the next few weeks and prepare contingency budgets if negotiations stall.
The carrier, jointly owned by Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, currently has to skirt Chinese and Pakistani airspace on many Europe- and North-America-bound routes because Islamabad closed its skies to Indian airlines in April after a flare-up along the Line of Control. The detours add as much as three hours of flying time, pushing fuel burn up by 25-29 percent and translating into an estimated US $455 million annual hit to the airline’s bottom line. Company executives told Indian officials that regaining a direct Great-Circle routing could be the difference between restoring daily non-stops such as Delhi-Washington and keeping them mothballed.
The request is politically fraught. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) controls the Hotan–Kashgar–Urumqi flight information region, which abuts sensitive training grounds and nuclear test ranges. Foreign airlines rarely win access except on case-by-case humanitarian grounds. Still, Air India argues that its request is purely commercial and notes that China has repeatedly urged South Asian neighbours to deepen “people-to-people ties” under the Belt and Road framework.
From Beijing’s perspective, granting passage would help Chinese airports capture additional transit traffic and reinforce its narrative of post-pandemic openness. But it might also set a precedent for other Indian and Western carriers, raising surveillance burdens for Chinese air-defence units. Diplomats say any deal will require reciprocal concessions, possibly including Indian approval for extra Chinese frequencies or faster airport slots.
For multinationals, the outcome will directly affect travel budgets and route planning between India and North America or Europe. A positive decision could shave up to four hours off connecting itineraries via Delhi or Bengaluru and help restore confidence in the resiliency of South-North aviation links that bypass Russia. Corporate mobility teams should monitor bilateral talks over the next few weeks and prepare contingency budgets if negotiations stall.
