China-US flights struggle to fill seats amid high prices, visa issues and cheaper stopovers

The frequency of flights between China and the US in July stood at a mere 23.6 per cent of what was seen in July 2019, noted British aviation data firm OAG, with seat occupancy at 25 per cent compared with five years ago.

The China-US market had made up 7 per cent of a 75 per cent overall decline in weekly seats in May compared with May 2019, according to CAPA-Centre for Aviation, a research consultancy based in Australia.

OAG analysts said they saw little change in that demand during the June-July summer travel wave.

“I would like to say there are too many [flights]. China and the US require visas for each other, so the number of visas issued determines the demand,” said Li, with neither side extending visa-free treatment for round-trip passengers.

In 2023, the US government issued less than one-third of the total visas given to Chinese citizens in 2019, the US Department of State said, and this translated to 263,000 non-immigrant business or tourism visas for Chinese nationals.

Younger Americans envision few job opportunities in China, while Chinese tourists lack money to spend on travel in the US, said Ker Gibbs, executive-in-residence at the University of San Francisco’s Centre for Business Studies & Innovation in Asia-Pacific.

“People in China who would ordinarily be considering overseas holidays aren’t feeling wealthy or optimistic, which makes them reluctant to spend money on a big trip,” Gibbs said.

The US has fallen to 13th place on China’s list of top international markets, according to the CAPA-Centre for Aviation.

Business travel has diminished as investors on both sides worry that the other may be hostile to their investments – a casualty of the US-China trade war that started in 2018, Gibbs added.

China-born inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay Area can fly directly to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan, but some will not pay more than US$1,600 per round trip ticket, and they may transfer in Seoul, South Korea, or in Taipei, Taiwan, to save up to US$300 per ticket, according to reviews of current flight prices.

“Many of us are going back to China, so we have been talking about who has the better flights,” said Carl Chan, president of the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce in Oakland, California, who also pointed to cheaper options via Seoul or Taipei.

Stopover flights may cost less because nonstop fares are “very high” due to a limited number of seats, said Brendan Sobie, founder of Singapore-based aviation consultancy Sobie Aviation.

Passengers bound for their hometowns in mainland China’s Guangdong province often fly to Hong Kong, where they can link to cross-border land transport, but they resent the idea of spending money on hotels or taxis if they arrive at odd hours, said Helen Wu, a front-desk manager with the Dream Holiday travel agency in San Francisco.

“We have too many flights to Hong Kong,” Wu said. “The airlines want to put more flights in place to mainland China, but the US government isn’t having it now.”

Passengers can almost always find seats on direct flights to China, Wu said, though she anticipated an increase in trips between San Francisco and Guangzhou during the relatively cheap September-November period.

Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan have “benefited from air connectivity due to the shortfall in frequency” of direct China-US flights, OAG Asia head Mayur Patel said.

The US Department of Transportation has allowed Chinese airlines 50 round-trip flights per week since March 31, up from 35.

American carriers are allowed their own 50 flights per week but were holding at 35 as of May, according to the CAPA-Centre for Aviation. Before the pandemic, 150 flights operated weekly between the world’s top two economies.

“Regulatory constraints” limit the number of flights that Chinese airlines can operate between the two countries following pandemic-era curbs, the CAPA-Centre for Aviation report added.

US airlines asked President Joe Biden’s office in April to stop approving more direct China flights because they felt Chinese airlines had unfair advantages.

They “expressed concerns” about Chinese airlines that fly over Russia and “how that’s an unfair competitive advantage for them”, Sobie said.

03:15

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Flights over Russia save time, but US and European carriers are avoiding the airspace because of the war in Ukraine.

Airlines are reluctant to provide more flights due to worries about low loads, analysts said, but carriers will probably keep whatever they have in case demand picks up.

“I do not anticipate any cutbacks, as capacity is already at a low base,” OAG’s Patel said, adding that flights could increase as geopolitical situations improve.

Delta Air Lines increased its Shanghai flights from US airports from four to 14 per week over the past year, and it has no “immediate plans” to add more, a company spokesman said.

United Airlines holds the largest share of the US-China market, followed by Air China, according to the CAPA-Centre for Aviation.

United Airlines has said it will add four weekly Shanghai-Los Angeles flights at the end of August and make that service daily in October, bringing its total weekly direct China-US flights to 21.

Passengers are “a good mix” of corporate travellers, tourists and students, the airline told the Post.