India has opened talks with China to secure an alternate air route for its international carriers, according to sources cited by The Tribune, after Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian flights and forced airlines onto longer, costlier detours.

The negotiations, still at an exploratory stage, aim to give Indian operators a viable corridor through Chinese airspace that would partially offset the penalties imposed by Islamabad's ban. Pakistan shut its airspace to Indian-registered and Indian-operated aircraft earlier this year amid the two countries' most serious confrontation in a decade, and the restriction remains in force.

Why does the Pakistani ban matter operationally?

For carriers flying west from Delhi, Mumbai and other Indian hubs toward Europe, the Gulf and North America, the closure adds hundreds of nautical miles to each leg. The practical consequences fall into three categories:

• Longer block times on westbound sectors, pushing flight times up by roughly an hour on some European routes
• Higher fuel burn per rotation, raising trip costs at a moment when carriers are already managing elevated jet fuel prices
• Payload constraints on weight-limited sectors, with some flights forced to carry additional fuel at the expense of passengers or cargo

Air India, the country's flag carrier and its largest long-haul operator, has borne the brunt of the disruption because its network is concentrated on precisely the Europe–North America axis that Pakistani airspace serves. IndiGo's expanding long-haul operation, which flies widebodies toward Istanbul and beyond, faces similar exposure.

What would a Chinese route change?

A corridor through Chinese airspace, if Beijing agrees to grant it, would give Indian carriers a northern alternative that avoids Pakistani territory on westbound legs. The geometry is not perfect: routing via China typically pushes flights north before turning west, which can suit services toward Europe and the UK but offers less benefit for Gulf-bound sectors.

The talks signal that New Delhi views the Pakistani closure as durable rather than temporary. Preparing a negotiated workaround through China indicates Indian authorities expect the airspace ban to persist for months, not weeks, and are treating it as a structural constraint on the country's international connectivity rather than a passing irritant.

Who is affected and how much?

The ban's cost footprint spans airlines, passengers and cargo operators:

• Airlines absorb higher fuel and crew costs on every westbound rotation, and some frequencies have come under review as economics tighten
• Passengers face longer journeys and, in some cases, adjusted schedules as carriers rebuild routings around closed airspace
• Freight operators lose capacity on sectors where payload has been sacrificed to carry detour fuel, tightening capacity on corridors used for pharmaceutical and perishables exports

India's aviation authorities have not publicly quantified the aggregate cost of the ban. But with hundreds of weekly westbound departures across Indian carriers before the closure, the per-flight penalty compounds quickly across a network.

What happens next?

Any agreement with China would require technical coordination on air traffic management, overflight clearances and route design before Indian carriers could file flight plans through the new corridor. Precedents exist for such arrangements, but the timeline depends on political alignment between New Delhi and Beijing as much as on operational readiness.

Until a Chinese route is secured and activated, Indian carriers will continue flying the longer southern and northern detours, with the cost burden pressing on exactly the long-haul segments that anchor their international strategies.