narvik

More flights?

Air China: Starting from May 27, Air China will operate flight CA981 from Beijing to New York every Saturday, and flight CA982 from New York to Beijing every Sunday.China Eastern Airlines: Beginning on May 20, China Eastern Airlines will offer flight MU583 from Shanghai to Los Angeles every Saturday, and flight MU586 from Los Angeles to Shanghai every Sunday.

China Southern Airlines: From May 29, China Southern Airlines will operate flight CZ327 from Guangzhou to Los Angeles every Monday, and flight CZ328 from Los Angeles to Guangzhou every Tuesday.

Xiamen Airlines: Starting May 30, Xiamen Airlines will run flight MF829 from Xiamen to Los Angeles every Tuesday, and flight MF830 from Los Angeles to Xiamen every Wednesday.

https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2305208093/

mlin32

I've also noticed an increase in services to European destinations like CDG and FRA starting just a couple weeks ago. Almost back to daily (5-6x/week) for MU and CA, and CA also restarted FRA-PVG direct.

moondog

As far as I can tell, the total number of weekly China-US flights operated by Chinese airlines is still capped at10 or 12, and this is unlikely to change until the bilateral air services agreement is updated.

ETA: PEK-JFK is certainly good. PVG-LAX might be cool if they were selling it for substantially less than $3k each way. I'm not really sure what's changed about CAN/XMN-LAX (different days of the week?).

plunet

The direct flight between London Heathrow and Qingdao - hardly a headline route - went from 1 flight a week up to 3 flights a week recently which exceeded the 2 flights a week it used to be pre-pandemic. I suspect that the need to maintain slots or lease them to others is partly responsible.

moondog

Of course, the LHR slots are valuable, but why wouldn't Capital Airlines fly to England from PKX (its home base) instead of TAO? Maybe CA has something to do with this (HNA carriers had to deal with scraps pre-pandemic because CA, CZ, and MU kept the best routes for themselves).

plunet

Coverage to/from Beijing from Heathrow is very poor at the moment.

PVG: Between BA, Virgin, MU and CA there are around 4 daily flights
CAN: Daily flight with CZ
PEK: One flight a week with CA
PKX: Daily flight with CZ

XIY: Three weekly flights with TS (Tianjin)
TAO: Three weekly flights with JD (Beijing Capital)
CSX: Three weekly flights with HU

The pattern for HU group airlines immediately above seems to be to fly from 2nd tier airports to/from LHR.

I think that's the summary of what's going between LHR and China at the moment, but I might have missed something.
Even pre-pandemic the number of direct flights between China and the UK was noted to be less than France / Germany with LH and AF/KL doing good work with their China based partners.

moondog

That seems like ~45 flights per week just to LHR....quite a bit nicer than 24 weekly frequencies distributed between DFW, DTW, JFK, LAX, SEA, and SFO.

For US routes, HNA group airlines were permitted to fly from Beijing and Shanghai, but the end points on the US side had to be lesser markets (e.g. BOS, HNL, LAS). Their presence in BOS was a boon for consumers because AA, DL, and UA matched their fares, and sometimes undercut them.

plunet

Agree that the capacity constraints for the US are super annoying for all concerned.

I think BA is due to resume their LHR PKX flights in June a few days a week, and ramping up to daily later in the year. But it's odd that CA hasn't resumed their daily LHR PEK flights. Even to a significant European hub like London oddities exist, Shanghai is more or less back to normal, yet Beijing is on a delayed restart.

Philipp Morgenstern

MU most frequent European destination is surprisingly Moscow. They fly 3x weekly from Xian and PKX, plus Daily to PVG. I wonder why four different Chinese airlines get to compete on the Beijing Moscow route but not any other European route, because during the rest of the northern summer CA, CZ, HU will fly daily from Beijing to Moscow, plus MU 3x.

travelinmanS

I would imagine this is more a political decision than an economic one. I can’t see Moscow, the destination, needing all that lift at the moment.

Philipp Morgenstern

I don't think it is political, the demand must obviously be there.

moondog

Do you have any Chinese colleagues who '"demand" to go to Moscow?

travelinmanS

A quick search on expert flyer reveals 9’s across the board on these in demand flights.

tauphi

I've seen plenty of Chinese tour groups headed to Russia. Russia is visa-free for Chinese nationals when travelling in an organised tour group.

uanj

Don't forget freight.