Originally Posted by
moondog
We have a long running thread on this general topic here:
More flights [ex-China to N America and Europe]
The short of it is that cheap fares to China are available from countries that have customer friendly bilateral air services agreements with China, but the US is not one of these countries at present.
Maybe it's just January, but the UA flight SFO to PVG and SEA to PVG seem to have a large number of unsold seats based on the seating chart. So perhaps demand is down as well.