2023-05-16

(Bloomberg, Washington) China was closed for three years during the COVID-19 pandemic and has finally opened up, but American airlines have not rushed to restart routes between China and the United States.

Before the outbreak of the epidemic in 2019, the average number of Direct flight between China and the United States between China and the United States every week was 340, and now there are only 24 at most every week.

According to insiders, the largest airlines in the United States, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines Airlines and United Airlines, all said that they would continue to maintain the number of flights during the epidemic period, not because they expected weak demand, but because of the dispute caused by the ban on flights over Russian airspace in Europe and the United States, which made these companies unwilling to increase flights to China.

After the outbreak of the Russo Ukrainian conflict, more than 30 countries, including the United States, prohibited passenger planes from flying over Russian airspace, but China was not subject to this restriction.

American airlines believe that Chinese competitors using Russian airspace can not only gain an advantage in fuel costs and ticket prices, but also have shorter flight times. Therefore, before Chinese flights are prohibited from flying over Russia, American airlines are unwilling to increase their flights to China.