The U.S. Department of Transportation today awarded authority to Delta Air Lines and United Airlines to launch new routes to China within the next year. DOT also awarded the remaining U.S. legacy carriers tentative awards for service to commence in 2009.
Delta Air Lines gained approval to immediately launch its Atlanta-Shanghai route, but the carrier said it would inaugurate service next year, using Boeing 777 aircraft with a two-class configuration. United Airlines gained next year's allotment and is approved to launch San Francisco-Guangzhou flights beginning on March 25, 2008.
DOT in a filing today tentatively awarded US Airways the right to serve the Philadelphia-Beijing market beginning on March 25, 2009, which also is the proposed launch date of American's Chicago-Beijing service, Continental's Newark-Shanghai flights and Northwest's Detroit-Shanghai service.
The route awards are the result of this year's new bilateral agreement between U.S. DOT and China's Civil Aviation Administration that will more than double to 23 the number of daily passenger flights between the two countries by 2012.
Today's decision by DOT is the first batch of awards for U.S. carriers. Three route authorities become available in 2010 and two apiece are expected to be up for grabs in 2011 and 2012. DOT said the agreement allows U.S. carriers to launch 13 new daily flights between the two countries within the next five years
(BTN, June 11).
Maxjet joined its legacy carrier counterparts with its bid to launch Seattle-Shanghai service, but DOT tentatively denied its request, noting that Maxjet would add only 96 daily seats to a capacity-constrained market. Furthermore, DOT noted that Maxjet does not have Chinese codeshare partners, which would further help U.S. travelers penetrate the interior of China.
DOT in the filing said in total, U.S. carriers operate 70 weekly flights into China. United Airlines holds the largest U.S.-China market share with 35 weekly flights. The carrier gained DOT's most recent route authority and this year added nonstop service between Washington, D.C. and Beijing. American last year launched daily nonstop service from Chicago to Shanghai, and Continental in 2005 launched nonstop service from Newark to Beijing. Northwest does not have a nonstop passenger flight between the United States and China, but does offer service 21 times a week to China via Japan. Neither Delta nor US Airways currently serve China.