I'm not certain about this, but I believe the suspensions only apply to flights coming to China. If true, that means penalized airlines might be able to do cargo only on the way over. The thing is, fares ex-China are A LOT cheaper than fares departing China because we aren't limited to a tiny number of "direct" options. If third-country transits were permitted, these economics would change in a heartbeat. $400 tickets still wouldn't be in the cards, but SFO-PVG would not command $5500 any more.

It also would mean, that you could book the flights as a pax on the way back China-USA.
Wonder how we could get a definite answer on this???

Ask GloballyServiced when he makes his escape from the Middle Kingdom. ;)

Thus far, whenever 857 has been canceled, there hasn't been an airplane in Shanghai to offer 858. So, even if they could do it, they are not doing it.

Again, leaving is cheap and easy, by comparison.

More digging.....according to FlightAware and United they are:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL858

And from UA (a click on WHERE'S THIS AIRCRAFT COMING FROM yields an error message):


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d4d23b09e1.jpg

United is flying this empty over and carrying pax back to the USA.

Yep, I have now come to the same conclusion (see my post before this one).
And EMPTY potentially means sans passengers, but WITH cargo.

So, in conclusion; a suspension and these rules from China, isn't a suspension of the airplane's flight itself, but merely a suspension of that aircraft carrying passengers.

With the new restrictions/requirements to passengers needing to sel-quarantine and testings starting 7 days before departure at the point of flight departing city, and then now extending the isolated quarantine period to 21-day upon landing in Shanghai (more at final destination such as Beijing), I wonder why flying to China even for work.

I have done the sel-isolation three times now, including last month. It is getting harder to stomach the process.
I left my home in DC on Jan 6 for SFO and spent more three days there to get all the tests done before flying out on Jan 9. Three weeks of isolation in Shanghai and another week in Bejing with new testing requirements and home isolation, I just return to the office today (Feb 7)... over a month since I began the trip!
Now I have to plan to go back to the US in less than 4 weeks for another work related trip, I am already dreading it....

Well, congrats on finally being at work I guess! :)
So, what was that 3rd week like in Shanghai in the end? You call it isolated, which is worrisome.
Adding some 4 days at city of departure & changing the third week in Shanghai from 'free' to 'isolated' is concerning!

Not accurate

Ive been checking flight status of 858 for the past 3 weeks and it’s been on. I presume cargo from SFO ($$$).

The 3rd round of this is what did me in. It’s gotten worse every time. The first two were “passable” but the third I was just wondering what I was doing with my life.

Not coming back again until these policies are gone. That may never happen.

Unless you have a major ability to make a huge income in a short time frame in China that you cannot make outside of China, I don’t see how you can continue selling yourself on this way of life.

Not to mention that life within China has become incredibly redundant and boring. Domestic travel in China is a complete nightmare and you run a serious risk of getting another quarantine under your belt just for going to the wrong place at the wrong time. I now know of 3 people that are sitting in a centralized lockdown (14 day sentence) as I type this because they traveled over CNY and someone was a “close contact.” So life in China is basically a series of alcohol abuse and over eating in your local metropolis.

Can anyone confirm if Chinese nationals are allowed to take any direct flight they choose back to China? For example, a Chinese national could fly direct from one of the European spots, Thailand, USA, whatever as long as they can get to that said destination and take the appropriate testing for the days before the flight?

This comment is extremely accurate for myself and my foreign friends in Shanghai. It was fun in 2020 and 2021 but "rinse and repeat" every weekend is starting to wear on me.

I attempted to explain this to YuropFlyer (who is extremely pro-China and longs for the glory days) during the holiday. Part of it is that we've aged out of places like Bar Rouge and Park 1997, but those venues don't even exist. Maybe Beijing isn't completely dead for the college kids, but I have my doubts (e.g. the gentrification of SLT was a travesty; all of us liked cheap and dirty).

My third week was at Hyatt House near Hongqiao airport. Because my reservation was made before Jan 17 (before the new requirements only selected hotels can take +7 guests), the local district and Hyatt House honored my reservation, but the hotel has stopped taking +7 reservations after Jan 17. My stay was exclusively inside the hotel room and limited time in the lobby area to collect my food delvieries. I could not leave the hotel. Hotel doesn't provide food but I can order room services. No daily cleaning and I can request for clean towls and water, which delivered using the robots. I could not go anywhere outside because the health code was yellow, so if I did leave the hotel, I cannot get back in because the code was not green.

I heard other hotels are more restrict on the +7 stay, which is exactly the same as the previous 14-day isolated stay. At least I can go down to the lobby to collect my food deliveries. We had a Wechat chatroom for the Jan 9 UA passengers. Some of them got really bad deals when they arrived at their destinations. They were put into less desirable places for isolated quarantine for up to another 14-days.