Originally Posted by
moondog
I think you might have misread me because I believe that frequency expectations are far more important than the Russian airspace issue.
I'm somewhat concerned that CAAC will not yield substantial ground on frequencies for several reasons: 1. the existing agreement was the product of many negotiations over a long period of time; 2. few other countries have pushed back the way the US has; 3. China typically doesn't give the US special treatment, especially when cornered; and 4. CAAC represents ~7 different airlines that all want pieces of the pie so a token number of additional frequencies would be a waste of time and effort for them.
You are right that the Russia overnight is a non-issue. China has quietly agreed to not overfly Russia for the newly approved flights (i.e. the 4 new flights when it was bumped to 12). No reason to believe that they won't do the same for new flights in the future.
CA981 JFK-PEK was a newly added flight that avoids Russia
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...510Z/KJFK/ZBAA
While MU 588 JFK-PVG is one of the original 8 flights and it does fly over Russia
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...035Z/KJFK/ZSPD
Chinese airlines have a lot of widebody aircraft sitting idle and they don't want to see the US/Canadian carriers carrying bulk of the Chinese passengers via ICN/TYO/HKG.
TPE is a special case as most Chinese cannot travel via TPE on their way out of China. UA's flight would cater to Americans/Canadians and Chinese flying one way into China.