My son works in GA and in the past few weeks they have been ferrying Chinese nationals back home on the Gulf streams they operate. West coast to NRT , crew change there and then a flight down to Phnom Penh where they pick up a Chinese carrier to get home.
Currently no foreign nationals are allowed in (not just US citizens) and they are not allowing any carriers permits to fly in including GA . Unless there is accurate,speedy on arrival testing it is hard to imagine even when things start to improve there would not be mandatory quaratine

With today's DOT order, I think UA and DL each will be able to do one weekly flight to China.

My guess for UA is SFO-PVG with a stop at ICN to change crew.

Maybe start from June 16? I am hopeful.

UA/DL June China flights all cancelled

The SFO-HKG-SIN passenger flights have been loaded in the schedule for July. I guess UA is pushing ahead with the flight.

I also see SFO-SIN direct flight in August (while the HKG-SIN not in the August schedule), so it looks like if the direct flight is back on, HKG-SIN won't be available.

Singaporeans have no restriction to fly into the US, but need to quarantine when they return to Singapore. Americans cannot enter into Singapore at the moment.

There is more particularized discussion of the SFO-HKG-SIN schedule in this thread.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...initially.html

Is there any official confirmation when flights will begin to return to China?
I talked to an agent a few minutes ago. She said that it would be mid July from SFO and mid August from Chicago. She did not specify which Chinese airports. My cancelled flight was to PEK. I assumed that those resumed flights would be SFO-PEK and ORD-PEK.
Cheers.
Edit: spelling editing.

Sadly, with the recent flare-up of cases in Beijing, and the strain confirmed to be non-Chinese (European), I fear regular flights to PEK will be pushed back even further....
:(

according to Sina finance 新浪财经 today UA will run SFO PVG via ICN twice a week. Eventually three weekly. Same for DL from SEA.

4 Chinese carriers will do 4 weekly flights and eventually 6 carriers will do 6. This makes it even for both sides.

Don't rely on United to tell whether you can fly to China (Expedia and Kayak etc. the same). UA will fly to HKG and SIN as well, but that does not mean, as an American, you are allowed to be on the flight.

I have an issue with UA selling China flights when there are so many uncertainties on whether the airlines are even permitted to fly.

According to the CAAC website, airlines need to continue filing with CAAC their pre-flight plasn under the one-weekly flight to one single destination arrangement until October 24. This leads me to believe no change until that date.

Does that mean UA flights will stopover in ICN on the way to PVG? SFO-ICN-PVG-ICN-SFO?:confused: UA probably doesn't have traffic rights for ICN-PVG-ICN.

I wonder whether it makes more sense to operate via NRT.

UA has more flights into NRT from the US, and also operates cargo flights from NRT to China. UA also has 5th freedom flights with right to pick up passengers at NRT. Of course China flights will be full, but UA will have unsold seats on ICN to PVG if passengers got off in ICN without needing to go to China.

I don’t have the full operating restrictions out of NRT, so my NRT above may already be not possible.

I am pretty sure that ICN stop is for crew change only. This is necessary to bypass 14 day quarantine for crew if they get off in Shanghai due to Chinese regulation. So new crew will get on board at ICN for short round trip flight to PVG.

No pax on SFO PVG flight can get off or aboard at ICN. So this has nothing to do with 5th right.

Thank you! This is helpful.

Three weekly flights will do wonders and hope I will get a chance to fly on one of the flights.

Edit: A friend just sent me the translation of the news report,, and it says July 6 to Oct 24 under the 5-1 policy for the PVG flights, so looks like China will not fully open up until after Oct 24.

Not trying to be too skeptical but that's _If_ current levels hold.

David

Is this SFO-ICN-PVG in addition to the SFO-ICN service starting back up in July, then?

I also wonder why not operate this through NRT instead of ICN. Perhaps NRT-PVG-NRT is too long for a single crew to operate RT in a single day.