NEW DELHI: India is trying to work out a “Pakistan bypass” with China for its domestic airlines as the latest closure since April 2025 has made routes between Delhi and West unviable due to longer detours amid soaring oil prices. India is in talks with China to make the Hotan route in Xinjiang available to its airlines.The Hotan plan has been in the works for months, with Air India and IndiGo doing feasibility studies. AI’s Boeing 777s, B787s and Airbus A350s can take the route. IndiGo can do so after it starts getting A350s.“We are exploring alternate airspaces and Hotan is under discussion. Diplomatic-level talks are underway. We are strongly pushing for Hotan. We are asking Indian airlines to launch more international flights from other parts of India (where western routes are not impacted by Pak airspace closure) like the south and improve connectivity from there,” aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said on the sidelines of Routes Asia 2027 Tuesday.India is keen on a Pakistan bypass as international travel is growing at about 5% over the past decade, while airlines’ growth plans are hit by the neighbour’s airspace closures. To be sure, India also reciprocally closes its airspace for Pak airlines but their operations are mainly to the West.Air India, which lost Rs 4,000 crore due to Pakistan airspace closure in a year, had made a presentation on the Hotan waypoint route.Some AI wide body aircraft have additional oxygen storage, allowing them more time to step descend to 14,000 feet and then 10,000 feet in case of single engine failure or cabin de-pressurisation while flying out of the region.This is the second time in five years that Air India has found an alternate way around an airspace closure. Before Aug 2021, AI flights used the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan route. After Taliban took over Kabul, AI took the longer route via south Pakistan and then Iran-Turkey. In a few months, Air India found a way out by overflying the Hindu Kush.
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A plane gets lighter as it burns fuel, allowing it to ascend. A wide body taking off from Delhi for Europe or North America is tanked up for the non-stop journey and must overfly the Hindu Kush, where minimum altitude is 30,000 feet. The tallest mountain is 25,289-foot Terich Mir.Air India finalised the Hindu Kush route for the B787 after one-and-a-half months of simulator studies as it could fly at about 35,000 feet. For the heavier B777, it took under four months to finalise procedures for overflying Hindukush and ensure it also maintained 30,000 feet.
