That seems like a difficult framework to use. So if US airlines ramp up to 21x a week, Chinese carriers are given permission to match, but then say AA leaves the market and US airlines go back down to 14x, Chinese carriers have to cut? I doubt China is ever going to agree for their airlines' frequencies to be at the mercy of US airlines' route planning.

If the US side is worried about Chinese carriers flooding the market, they should just try to negotiate for a lower cap under the current framework.

As I suggested a few posts up, we got to the 2020 situation slowly over the course of 20 years one batch at a time.

Carriers were allowed to remove or modify routes without too much hassel, and if a US carrier pulled out of a given route, there was no impact on China carriers' existing slots.
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Furthermore, the DOT was permitted to reassign the US carrier's forfeited slots to another US carrier, based on its own procedures.

In any event, if we were to return to 2020 limits now, neither side would come close to maxing out in the short term, but the Chinese would presumably ramp up faster.

If I recall correctly the system categorized cities into different tiers. Tier 1 (Shanghai, Beijing?) had a hard cap, and for the lower tiers it was pretty easy for airlines to add flights.

Yes. That's what I was trying to convey in my edit to post 105.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230424-cnns23
Why can't Chinese airlines increase flights to Canada?

Canada also needs to update its bilateral. I'm guessing AC isn't pushing too hard.

If this stalemate keeps on going maybe a Chinese airline should just fly to Tijuana to grab the demand from California.

Silly, but I would actually consider it!
😮

Nice, and my favorite Chinese airline too, HU.

But does it say where in China they're trying for?

Shanghai. But for it to work it needs to stop in Tijuana both ways, because Shanghai Mexico city can be flown non stop eastward. Obviously they would have to the right marketing to the Chinese community in California.

I'm 80% certain that one of my friends flew HU from PVG to TIJ and another airline from there to Columbia before Covid.

Okay, thanks for the info.
That's out for me then. I'm done with flying into PVG.

What’s wrong with PVG? I find it much better than PEK.

I won't answer for him, but I personally try to avoid including domestic connections in international itineraries.