United Airlines opens new routes into China's rapid growth

The increasingly lucrative route between U.S. and the world's fastest growing economy has spurred United Airlines to double its flights into China in the next five years.

United currently offers five daily flights to Beijing and Shanghai from North America, but is looking to double this number to 10 by 2010, senior vice-president, Michael Whitaker, told the South China Morning Post. Expansion plans will be rolled out once the new air service agreement inked between the U.S. and the mainland allowing 13 new daily passenger flights operated by U.S. carriers to and from the mainland by 2012 is in place.

Four U.S. airline companies – American, Continental, Northwest and United – will have to vie with each other for the new flights offered under the agreement. Three of the 13 additional flights are reserved for newcomers and one is limited to Guangzhou where currently no U.S. carrier is in operation, the South China Morning Post reported.

Sources from the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport revealed last week that United is applying to open a daily non-stop service between Guangzhou and San Francisco in April 2008. It also applied for a Los-Angeles-Shanghai route due to be operational in 2009, which will be the first non-stop service proposed by a U.S. airline between the two cities.

U.S. government statistics show that visitors from the mainland and Hong Kong to the U.S. rose to 152,849, a 16.2% increase in the first half of the year, and the first "capital to capital" route between Washington and Beijing filled 80% of seats within four months of operation. Mr Whitaker also said that the airlines will shift aircraft from other existing routes, mostly from domestic services, to the mainland market to meet the increasing demand.

Nevertheless, barriers to U.S.-China traffic growth still remain; the lengthy visa application times required by the U.S. government for mainlanders being one of them.