The U.S. Department of Transportation has approved a new round of increased flight applications from Chinese airlines.
New flights are taking off this week. Chinese airlines have been authorized to operate 35 U.S.-China flights per week, with U.S. airlines operating an equal number, totaling 70 flights.
This marks nearly a double increase from 36 flights per week by the end of September. Additionally, Sichuan Airlines and Hainan Airlines, two regional Chinese carriers, have been approved to operate U.S.-China routes for the first time in three years.
This spells good news for Chinese students at USC.
“The lack of direct flights has been a major obstacle for me to go home,” said Suchen Yu, a junior Chinese student.
Yu’s family is in Hefei, Anhui. This summer marked her first trip back to China since the pandemic. Despite not needing to quarantine, the inconvenience of layovers was a significant hardship.
“When the price of a one-way direct flight was $2,000 more, I told myself that layovers weren’t so bad,” said Yu. “But you realize it’s not the case when you’re actually traveling.”
Yu’s round trip this summer included layovers in Hong Kong and Manila. From leaving Los Angeles to arriving at her home, each journey took nearly 30 hours. She particularly complained about her experience with Philippine Airlines, saying, “Going through two bag checks and long queues in a completely foreign country after a long flight is incredibly frustrating.”
Lin She, a third-year Computer Science Games student from China, is also pleased with the decision of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“When I came to study in 2021, there were hardly any direct flights, and I had to transfer in Dubai. You can imagine how it feels to fly for 10 hours and then another 16 hours. Even now, between China and the U.S., apart from a few opportunities to redeem points, there are hardly any cheap cash tickets. But with the increase in supply, I believe we will soon see a change.”
Because of the geographical advantage, Los Angeles remains the U.S. city with the most flights from Chinese airlines, accounting for 18 of the 35 weekly flights. For reasons of fair competition, the U.S. Department of Transportation prohibits Chinese airlines from using newly opened routes that pass through Russian airspace.
Due to the shortest path between the U.S. and China requiring a crossing over the Arctic, avoiding Russian airspace means an increase in flight distance, fuel consumption and crew requirements.
This has little impact on flights from the U.S. West Coast to coastal cities in China, but for East Coast flights or flights to inland China, planes have to reduce load or add stopovers due to insufficient range.
Sichuan Airlines noted in its announcement that flights from Los Angeles to Chengdu need to stop in Hangzhou, but cannot board or disembark passengers. Air China’s New York-Beijing flight needs to stop in Los Angeles, while Hainan Airlines’ Boston-Beijing flight has chosen Seattle.
Initially, Hainan Airlines sold tickets for Seattle-Beijing flights, but the Hainan Airlines Seattle office told Annenberg Media that currently, they can only board passengers in Boston.
“Before the first flight on November 26, we were notified that Seattle could only be a technical stopover, without approval. We are actively coordinating with U.S. DOT, CBP and Seattle Tacoma Airport.”
Currently, one-way tickets from the United States to China are priced below $450 during the off-season at the end of November. However, due to the fact that flight frequency is far from fully restored to the weekly 330 flights level of 2019, prices around the Christmas holiday period remain high.
Lin She said that he will choose to transfer in Tokyo this winter, but if direct flights between China and the U.S. can offer pre-pandemic prices and service levels, he will opt for the more convenient option.
Although the issue of Russian airspace may not be resolved for the time being, travel between the two largest economies in the world, which are currently in a phase of restoring relations, is still moving towards normalization.
Yu finds solace in the joint commitment by the leaders of both countries to significantly increase flights early next year.
“I would like to go home again next summer, and hopefully by then, it will be back to the pre-pandemic situation.”