12-Apr-2025:

 

India-China: New beginnings, with Advantage Chinese airlines particularly for air freight

By Jagan

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The potential re-opening of direct passenger air transport services between India and China is interesting. Scheduled passenger services between the two largest economies in continental Asia have been sparse for the volume of trade, existing and potential business between them. 

The limited passenger services underwent a brief period modest growth toward the end of the 2010s decade, with some low cost carriers launching routes between leading Indian metro cities and large cities in southern and central China. The largest (passenger) India-China city pairs of Delhi-Beijing, Mumbai-Beijing, Delhi-Shanghai and Mumbai-Shanghai are beyond the reach of single aisle aircraft.

Business and Trade are expected to be the primary drivers of air travel - for both passengers and cargo. Scope for tourism and VFR is some what limited, atleast in the short term.

That left most of this traffic to be served by connections at Hong Kong. The limited passenger twin aisle capacity between the two large economies meant supply side limitations for prospective air cargo. Medium haul freighters could potentially fill with direct connections between the production centres in Southern, Central and South eastern China and demand clusters around and beyond the leading metro cities in India. 

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India-China offers the most potential for freighter operations given the size and growth potential of the economies, scope for increasing bilateral trade, geographical spread of origin-destination pairs (most being medium and long haul) and limited competition from belly capacity on passenger aircraft.

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SF Airlines and YTO Cargo Airlines have captured a major share of scheduled freight capacity between India and China. Both carriers operate to most of India’s top metro cities from the leading source markets in China. Originally, their network to China from India was limited to destinations in Southern China. Over the years, these carriers have built a solid, consistent presence and vast network (in air cargo terms) for India-China.

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Among their major competitive advantages is their choice of equipment - the venerable Boeing 767 converted freighter. With a payload capacity of 2.5x of single aisle freighters operated by Indian carriers, the 767F has the range to reach all of India from cities in the north-east and central China, such as Wuham, Hangzhou, Chendu and ofcourse, Beijing and Shanghai. The Boeing 757 converted freighter is also deployed on India-China runs, and this long out of production aircraft has both a range and payload advantage over the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 converted and production freighters in the current and likely future fleets of airlines in India. The lone exception in India is Blue Dart Aviation, a proven successful pioneer with 30+ year track record for express freight. However, Blue Dart which originally operated 737 classic freighters and thereafter  up-gauged to 757s more than a decade ago, remains focused on domestic overnight runs which feed into the transcontinental long haul services of its new controlling shareholder DHL. 

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The generally useful Great Circle Distance is an unsuitable choice for a first glance look-up at a proxy for stage lengths involved in the case of India-China. This is due to the Himalayan mountain range and the vast Tibetan Plateau. Hence flights follow a substantially longer route than what GCD may imply.

Designated air routes used for India-China flights also offer scope for optimisation. From a South Asia point of view, defined air routes in Southern China have traditionally been driven by flights going directly south to South east Asia. Adhering to these air corridors creates kinks and partial loops for flights between China and India. With growing traffic in the future, airspace management authorities in both countries, particularly China may define additional routes that reduce detour, fuel consumption and travel time.