Originally Posted by
tth6133
Airfares are determined by supply and demand. Nonstop flights, and particularly shorter nonstop flights, are in greater demand (relative to supply), so they're more expensive. Nonstop flights on Chinese airlines between US East Coast and China, and between Europe and China, are significantly shorter, so they're generally more expensive. This doesn't apply to flights with connections, obviously.
As others have noted, Europe to China has been A LOT cheaper than US to China (and Transpacs in general) since COVID. MU would presumably prefer to send more planes to NYC instead of BUD, but the US government doesn't want that, and Canada isn't much friendlier in this respect.
There is no secret cache of $2400 business class fares that MU is holding back from the OP.