IndiGo, India’s largest airline, successfully launched the regular all-cargo flight between Kolkata and Kunming on 20 April 2026, with its inaugural ceremony held at Kunming Changshui International Airport. This thrice-weekly flight is operated by the airline’s A321F freighter. On the inaugural flight day, the inbound cargo consisted of 9 tons of high-quality crabs from India, while the outbound cargo was approximately 21.4 tons of general goods. The opening of this new route will significantly enhance the air logistics capacity between southwest China and eastern India, providing strong support for the rapid flow of fresh produce, cross-border e-commerce parcels, and various general commodities between the two regions.
At the inaugural ceremony, representatives from relevant entities, including the Consulate General of India in Guangzhou, Yunnan Airport Group, as well as the Provincial Department of Transportation, the Provincial Department of Commerce, the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office, Kunming Entry-Exit Border Checkpoint, Kunming Changshui Airport Customs, and China Eastern Airlines Yunnan Co., Ltd., attended the event jointly and witnessed this important occasion.
Mr. Gince Kuruvilla Mattam, Consul General of the Consulate General of India in Guangzhou, stated: “IndiGo has emerged as India’s leading airline in terms of both passenger traffic and fleet size, with its CarGo network covering South Asia and extending to countries across Asia and Europe. The Kolkata-Kunming cargo route links China’s gateway to South and Southeast Asia with the logistics hub in eastern India; it serves not only as a logistics express lane but also as an important bridge for China-India economic and trade cooperation. The launch of this route also underscores Yunnan Airport Group’s extensive professional network and its open, collaborative approach. Taking this route as the starting point, we are willing to deepen cooperation, increase flight frequencies, manage logistics costs more efficiently, facilitate Yunnan’s products to access the global market and Indian goods to enter the Chinese market, and jointly build a high-quality model for China-India aviation cooperation.”
At the ceremony, Mr. Jia Suo, Vice President of Yunnan Airport Group, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Kunming Airport, delivered a speech and put forward three initiatives focusing on Yunnan-India aviation cooperation:
First, deepen route coordination, increase the frequency of passenger and cargo flights, and improve the air corridor featuring the simultaneous development of passenger and cargo transportation.
Second, strengthen multi-party collaboration, promote concerted efforts among airlines, logistics providers and port authorities, and enhance the efficiency of transportation support.
Third, expand the dimensions of cooperation, take air routes as the link, and facilitate the in-depth integration of Yunnan and India in economic and trade, cultural and people-to-people, and tourism fields.
It is understood that Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, India and a metrocity in eastern India, serves as a key node for economic, trade and cultural exchanges between Yunnan and India. As a gateway hub for opening up in southwest China, Kunming is fully committed to building itself into a distribution centre facing South and Southeast Asia. The resumption of passenger flights and inauguration of cargo services on the Kunming-Kolkata route this time have forged an air corridor featuring “simultaneous passenger and cargo transportation with two-way unimpeded flow”. This is not only an important measure for Yunnan to optimise its air network layout, but also a concrete practice to deepen practical bilateral cooperation between Yunnan and India.
