While European airlines have suspended China-Europe routes one after another, United States airlines have finally decided to increase flights between China and the United States.
Delta Air Lines announced that it will resume nonstop service from Shanghai Pudong (PVG) to Los Angeles (LAX) in June 2025, with three weekly flights.
With the reopening of Shanghai-Los Angeles flights, Delta will operate 17 nonstop flights per week between China and the United States, including the current two routes from Shanghai to Detroit and Seattle.
However, the number of flights between China and the United States is still far less than before the epidemic, and in contrast, the number of flights from some countries to China has recovered "at full capacity".
The increase in flights in China and the United States was slower than expected
Delta's flight increase this time uses the additional flight rights approved by China and the United States in February this year.
According to the notice at the time, Chinese and American airlines can operate a total of 100 scheduled passenger flights per week, including 50 flights from the Chinese side and 50 flights from the United States.
Now, more than half a year later, six Chinese airlines have already filled up their weekly flights of 50, while United States airlines have not used up their quota of 50 flights so far.
In May, Delta Airlines increased its flights from Shanghai to Detroit from three times a week to one flight a day. United Airlines only resumed its four-week nonstop flight from Shanghai to Los Angeles at the end of August.
As the new season begins at the end of October, Delta Air Lines and United have applied to continue to postpone the resumption of flights between China and the United States that were previously operated before the pandemic. Delta's new flight plans will not start until next season.
It is worth noting that the United States Department of Transportation mentioned in a notice at the end of last year that it hopes to further normalize Sino-US flights in the northern hemisphere summer of 2024, and the Civil Aviation Administration of China has also made it clear that it will promote a large increase in direct flights between China and the United States this year.
However, under the cost pressure of flying around Russia, the current recovery rate of the Sino-US route is still less than 30%. Due to the implementation of the principle of reciprocity of traffic rights, if United States airlines do not increase their flights, Chinese airlines cannot continue to increase.
However, according to the reporter's understanding, Delta's new Shanghai-Los Angeles route does not need to fly over Russia's airspace, so there is no cost impact from the detour after the epidemic, so the only thing that affects the company's resumption of this route is the prediction of demand.
How is the resumption of international flights?
In addition to Delta Air Lines, many foreign airlines have recently announced additional flights to China. For example, Kenya Airways announced that it would launch a direct flight from Nairobi to Beijing; Saudi Airlines also announced that it will launch a direct flight from Beijing Daxing International Airport to Dammam on October 28; Ethiopian Airlines just increased the Guangzhou-Addis Ababa route to 10 flights per week at the end of September.
The new routes are all from Africa or the Middle East, which is also the region with a high rate of flight recovery. According to the operation of international routes from Flight Steward in September, from January to September this year, the number of routes from West Asia, Central Asia, and Africa has exceeded that of 2019.
If you look at the number of international outbound passenger routes of the entire Chinese civil aviation, it has only recovered to 70.3% of 2019, of which Southeast Asia is still the most dense region, but compared with 2019, it has decreased by more than 200, nearly halved, and the number of routes in North America (including United States and Canada) is less than half of that in 2019.
A number of industry insiders pointed out to reporters that since the beginning of this year, China's international routes have undergone a lot of structural changes, of which the number of passenger flights to the "Belt and Road" countries in Africa and the Middle East accounted for 73.8%, an increase of 4.4 percentage points over the pre-epidemic period, and the new routes opened by the three major airlines are also more to the non-traditional market, which is not unrelated to the impact of the traditional European and American routes by the reciprocal restrictions on traffic rights, as well as the strengthening of economic and trade exchanges between China and the "Belt and Road" countries.
In addition, from January to September, there were 67 cities operating international flights in mainland China, a decrease of 13 compared with 2019, and most of the cities that suspended flights were below the second tier cities, and the international routes involved were all Southeast Asian and East Asian routes.
Compared with 2019, this year's international flights are more concentrated in first-tier cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen), with the proportion of flights increasing from 54.4% in 2019 to 59.6%, an increase of 5.1 percent, and the market share has further increased to nearly 6%.
The director of the Civil Aviation Administration mentioned at the semi-annual work meeting that in the second half of the year, it is necessary to continue to increase the market development efforts of emerging markets, especially the "Belt and Road" countries, improve the efficiency of the use of the existing third and fourth air traffic rights, and encourage airlines to make good use of the fifth air traffic rights.
(This article is from Yicai)