Originally Posted by
narvik
I'm just saying that it's nonsensical to ask any airline to purposely fly an extra 1000 miles (or whatever it is) for the sole reason of oneself having to do so.
This is just something that will never happen, and if it's a point of contention, the people at the negotiation table just need to get creative and come up with another solution that both parties can agree on.
That's what they get paid for after all!
Well, if I was negotiating, I would propose that no new frequencies can overfly Russia, but existing Russia overflight frequencies are grandfathered. Since there's only 8x weekly Chinese flights right now (and I think only 5x of them overfly Russia regularly), it'll be a relatively small number of exceptions once flights ramp up, so US airlines would be affected minimally in the long run. And Chinese airlines won't be forced to change what they're currently doing, since only new frequencies are affected.
I think something like this is actually in the "zone of possible agreement" for both sides. However, I don't see an agreement being reached anytime soon due to the current state of US-China relations.