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Amanda Lee

Ralph Jennings

Shaffia Xiong’s trip to New York almost didn’t happen.
The 25-year-old Guangzhou-based businesswoman paid a consultant 3,000 yuan (US$410) for help getting a US work visa and buying a sky-high 20,000 yuan return ticket for a series of conferences – which, even at that astronomical price, required a 2.5-hour stopover in Seoul.
“There are a handful of choices [of airlines] and few flights,” Xiong said. “It’s not just the high cost. There is also the long waiting list for visas to travel to the US.”
Frequency of flights will increase in October, when US airlines expand their list of direct routes. But analysts expect no quick recovery to pre-pandemic numbers, pointing to strained China-US relations and uncertainty over long-term demand.




The US Department of Transportation announced in August that the number of Chinese passenger flights permitted to fly to the US would increase by six in October, up to 24 per week.
Local governments in China, including those in Harbin, Haikou and Fuzhou, have said they would offer subsidies to airlines that allocate runway space to direct international flights.
“However, it is important to note that this is still significantly less than the pre-Covid-19 period when there were more than 300 round trips per week,” said Herman Tse, valuations manager at Cirium Ascend consultancy.
Because of limited capacity, he said, airfares are expected to remain elevated in the coming months.
US-China flight increase good for tourism, but can it mend business ties?
According to Cirium data, 30 weekly scheduled flights depart from China to the US, and nine weekly flights reach Canada. This has not reached the maximum allowable number, Tse said.
China-US relations have soured since 2017 over trade, tech-sharing and geopolitical disputes.
“Providing the bilateral framework between the two countries supports a resumption or stepping up of services, I would expect to see airlines add back capacity,” said John Strickland, director of the London-based aviation advisory JLS Consulting. “That could be influenced by political sensitivities as much as by market demand.”
Flying out of Shanghai, the terminal still felt ghostly quiet
Ker Gibbs, AmCham Shanghai
Ker Gibbs, former president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, flew from San Francisco to the Chinese financial capital in August. He paid 30 per cent more than he would have before the pandemic, and a layover added five hours to his travel time.
“The direct flights were crazy expensive when I booked, so I flew via Taipei,” said Gibbs, now executive-in-­residence at the University of San Francisco.
“The transfer was fine, but it added hours to the total flight time in each direction,” Gibbs said. “Flying out of Shanghai, the terminal still felt ghostly quiet.”
Asian airlines that transit in Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo have filled the vacuum left in the absence of direct China-US flights, Strickland said. But their capacity is limited.
It’s going to be a struggle to bring foreign tourists back to China
Delta Air Lines says it will resume China-US direct flights from October 29, when it launches 10 trips per week to Shanghai Pudong International Airport from hubs in Seattle and Detroit. Delta’s Los Angeles-Shanghai flights will resume in March, running four times per week.
“As demand continues to increase and the busy travel season to the Asia-Pacific region commences, the Delta team is ready to welcome even more travellers to the region this winter,” the airline’s Asia-Pacific vice-president, Jeff Moomaw, said in a statement.
United Airlines said in August that it would resume some US-China flights starting from October and November, particularly Beijing to San Francisco.


China’s “big three” airlines are running their own routes, with more direct charters planned in the coming months. Air China carries passengers to Beijing from both New York and Los Angeles, as well as a route to Shenzhen from the latter US city. China Eastern Airlines flies between Shanghai and New York, along with a round trip from Shanghai to Los Angeles. China Southern Airlines travels regularly from its hub in Guangzhou to New York and Los Angeles.
While China kept its borders shut to most travel during the Covid-19 years, US airlines “switched capacity to the large and very buoyant US domestic market and to the US-Europe market” thanks to record traffic on Transatlantic routes, Strickland said.
“This leaves less flexibility for US carriers in particular to add back capacity short term, and likely reluctance as long as profitability from these markets continues,” he said.
Xiong – the beleaguered traveller – works for an arm of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, a quasi-governmental business advocacy group. She was prepared to wait six months or a year for a work visa for her seven-day trip in New York.
As China flights surpass pre-pandemic levels, tourists bode well for economy
“Maybe it’s because of our work unit,” Xiong said. “It might have been easier with a typical company, although it wasn’t like this before [the pandemic].”
China has also been encouraging its citizens to spend locally, which might put pressure on the recovery of international leisure travel, Tse said. He also posited ongoing tensions between China and the US have affected economic flows, which has had a downstream effect on business travel.
Air China, China Eastern and China Southern still reported aggregate losses of 12.6 billion yuan (US$1.72 billion) in the first half of this year, although the amount is significantly lower than the 49.7 billion yuan in losses the three incurred over the same period last year.
Even with subsidies from local governments to boost demand and economic activity, Tse said, Chinese airlines are thus likely to remain cautious about resuming international flights.
“It is unlikely that they would operate routes that result in financial losses.”


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More direct China-US flights on the horizon, but return to 2019 traffic far more distant

An Air China plane lands at Beijing Capital International Airport on June 29, 2022. Flights between the US and China are scheduled to increase in October per an agreement between the two countries. Photo: EPA-EFE

A passenger airplane lands in Beijing Capital International Airport on December 27, 2022. Flights between the US and China are scheduled to increase in October per an agreement between the two countries. Photo: EPA-EFE

Chinese migrants to Australia top pre-pandemic levels, lured by jobs, property and improved economic ties

More Chinese nationals are moving to Australia than before the pandemic, and student visas are on the rise. Photo: Reuters

More Chinese nationals are moving to Australia than before the pandemic. Photo: AFP

China’s civil aviation recovery ‘difficult to achieve’ as coronavirus scars remain, industry calls for support

Chinese airlines have continued to incur overall losses in the second quarter, faced with other operational pressures, including fuel price increases and yuan depreciation. Photo: AP

China’s top three airlines – Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines- reported a combined loss of 108.7 billion yuan (US$15.1 billion) last year. Photo: Xinhua

China’s sluggish overseas flights create ‘worrying’ trend amid US, Europe tensions

China has resumed flights with 59 countries, representing around 82 per cent of the pre-pandemic level, according to Xu Qing, deputy head of the CAAC’s transport department. Photo: Reuters

Most mainland Chinese flying overseas via Hong Kong as talks on adding flights between country and US drag, global airline body says

Hong Kong’s airport handled 3.1 million passengers in April, about 24 times more than the same month last year, but still only 48 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. Photo: Dickson Lee

Philip Goh, IATA’s regional vice-president for Asia-Pacific. Photo: Handout

Closure of Russian airspace ‘single biggest factor’ stopping foreign airlines from boosting service to China, global industry body says

Passengers at the Beijing Daxing International Airport in April. The number of flights between China and the United States remains at just 6 per cent of 2019 levels amid tensions between the two sides. Photo: AFP

The IATA hopes to see Russian airspace reopen to all airlines, says association chief Willie Walsh. Photo: Reuters 

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Direct flights between two countries set to increase in October, a fraction of pre-pandemic routings
Both Chinese and US airlines will expand their schedules, but politics and structural demand shifts may blunt enthusiasm for total resumption


Airlines in China and the US are preparing for an increase in their direct routings, but the likelihood of a rapid return to 2019 levels of service is vanishingly small.


More direct China-US flights on the horizon, but return to 2019 traffic far more distant

Direct flights between two countries set to increase in October, a fraction of pre-pandemic routings Both Chinese and US airlines will expand their schedules, but politics and structural demand shifts may blunt enthusiasm for total resumption

Direct flights between two countries set to increase in October, a fraction of pre-pandemic routings

Both Chinese and US airlines will expand their schedules, but politics and structural demand shifts may blunt enthusiasm for total resumption