Originally Posted by
flyerCO
PEK just isn't the market. PVG is the market. JFK-PVG happens before JFK-PEK. Regardless there's limited slots between US and China major cities and China isn't going to be changing that anytime soon..
1. During the past 2 years, MU has been flying NYC-SHA uncontested and has picked up a lot of former UA corporate contracts as a result; presumably UA will get some of its previous "Buy American First" accounts back, but any new entrants will face an uphill battle
2. NYC-BJS hasn't been served by
any airline during the past 2 years. Obviously, both CA and UA will resume their routes when possible, but this could present a "first to the punchbowl" opportunity for AA or DL
3. AA, DL, and UA have rights to a fixed number of slots (e.g. 21+ each) post COVID
-specific routes require approval from both CAAC and US DOT
-this means that low performers such as DFW-PVG and SFO-CTU are more difficult to swap out than high performers like SFO-PVG, but AA has nothing to lose by attempting to replace DFW with JFK and PVG with BJS
It will be interesting to see what happens, but my predictions are:
-UA attempts to move some of its CTU and HGH slots to PVG or BJS
-UA and/or AA scale down ORD-China, if necessary
-AA and UA fly LAX-PVG 3x per week, at most (MU can always undercut them, and now has a much better product IMO)
-AA reduces DFW frequencies if it can replace them with better O&D routes
-DL will stick with ATL, DTW, and SEA
As I've intimated, desired route plans are only part of the battle; e.g. Chengdu doesn't want to lose its flight and CA would object to AA flying JFK-BJS.