India is exploring an alternative air route over China’s Xinjiang to reduce the impact of the continued closure of Pakistani airspace, civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said on Tuesday.
He was speaking at the curtain-raiser for Routes Asia 2027, the route development event for the Asia Pacific, which India will host next March.
“We are looking at other alternatives. Discussions on the Hotan route are going on between the two countries. Our external affairs ministry is engaging with their country [China]… let us see how it goes, but we are trying alternatives,” Naidu said.
Naidu did not indicate a timeline for the route’s opening, nor did he suggest that an agreement had been reached with China.
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Longer route drives up fly time, fuel costs
Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian airlines after the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025, and its latest notice extends the closure to October 24. Since then, Indian airlines flying to Europe and North America from northern and western India have had to detour over the Arabian Sea towards Muscat. The detour adds between 45 minutes and two hours of flying time, and has driven up fuel burn and operating costs on several sectors.
“All Indian carriers from the north and north west are following the L639 route to avoid the Pakistan airspace… which increases their flying time by 2 hours,” a person aware of the matter said. L639 is one of the designated airways that carry the detour over the Arabian Sea.
The Delhi-Istanbul sector shows how arduous the detour is. IndiGo’s 6E-11 is scheduled to take 8 hours 39 minutes, according to flight-tracking data. Turkish Airlines’ TK717, which is not covered by the Pakistani ban, is scheduled at 6 hours 45 minutes, almost two hours less.
Naidu said the proposed corridor over Hotan, in southwestern Xinjiang, would offer a significantly shorter route.
Savings but a significant price to pay
If the discussions pan out, Indian airlines flying from Delhi and Mumbai would head towards Leh, enter Chinese airspace near Hotan, turn towards Kyrgyzstan, and then connect to existing routes to Europe, the UK and North America. “The route may lead to significant savings for destinations like Georgia, Baku, Central Asia, and northern Europe,” the second person said.
The corridor would also take Indian aircraft into difficult and sensitive airspace. Reuters reported in November 2025 that the airspace falls within the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Western Theatre Command, whose responsibilities include responding to any conflict with India. The region is ringed by mountains as high as 20,000 feet (6,100m).
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International airlines generally avoid it, the report said, because an aircraft that loses cabin pressure must descend quickly to lower altitude, and there are few emergency airports to divert to. No non-Chinese airline had used Hotan airport in the previous 12 months, according to the report.
The detour has proved particularly costly for Air India, which relies heavily on western long-haul routes out of its Delhi and Mumbai hubs.
