U.S. airlines and airline unions have asked the Biden administration not to further increase the number of flights that Chinese carriers can operate to the United States, citing conditions that they see as unfair competition.
“The anticompetitive relationship between our two countries is evident in the fact that Chinese airlines have benefited from continued access to Russian airspace, while U.S. airlines ceased flying over Russian airspace in March 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Airlines for America (A4A), a trade group representing unions representing pilots and flight attendants, wrote in a letter to DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
In February, the Department of Transportation announced that it would increase the number of round-trip flights per week for Chinese airlines from 35 to 50 per week, starting March 31.
According to Cirium’s flight schedule data, Chinese airlines are scheduled to operate a total of 200 round-trip flights to the U.S. this month, but U.S. airlines have not followed suit. They are scheduled to operate 143 round-trip flights in April.
The March 31 cap increase was one of a series of such increases over the past year, resulting in airlines quadrupling their US-China frequency in April compared with last year. Still, that frequency is still only a quarter of what it was in April 2019, under the US-China air travel agreement that effectively ended during the pandemic.
The U.S. airlines and unions wrote in the letter that flights over Russian airspace were not their only concern.
“Even for flights that do not pass through Russian airspace, Chinese airlines are at a competitive disadvantage because they enjoy certain protections that arise from the relationship between Chinese airlines and the Chinese government, which allows them to operate regardless of standard market conditions,” they wrote.
The U.S. airlines' position has at least some support in Congress.
“If the US government does not address these critical issues and the US-China passenger travel market expands, American airline workers, travelers, and airlines will pay a huge price,” tweeted Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamurti.
