For American and European travelers, the options for flights to and from China are narrowing by the day.
British airline Virgin Atlantic announced on Saturday that flight VS251 will be the last flight between Shanghai and London, suspending the route it first operated 25 years ago. LOT Polish Airlines will suspend flights from Warsaw to Beijing from Thursday, while Scandinavian airline SAS has announced that it will suspend direct flights between Copenhagen and Shanghai next month.
When China lifts tough coronavirus restrictions in 2022, executives are expected to return to the world’s second-largest economy in droves and business travel to return to pre-pandemic levels. Ta. But that hasn’t happened.
Over the past few months, many international airlines have suspended or reduced flights to and from China. For European and British airlines, the ongoing war in Ukraine has prevented non-Chinese airlines from flying into Russian airspace. This means longer travel times for passengers and longer routes and higher costs for airlines.
Virgin Atlantic said in a statement that “significant challenges and complexities” in flying to and from China led to the decision to suspend its only flight to China, the London-Shanghai route. The company noted that avoiding Russian airspace would add an hour to flights from London to Shanghai and two hours to flights in the opposite direction, requiring additional spending on fuel and crew.
The increased costs will be an even bigger blow because there are fewer passengers on flights to China. China’s economic downturn and growing concerns about foreign companies operating in the country have weakened demand for business travel, and tourism has slowed despite the Chinese government removing visa requirements for more than a dozen countries. It doesn’t make up the difference.
According to China, 14.6 million foreign tourists visited the country in the first half of this year. While this was a significant increase compared to the same period last year, it was still far off the full-year visitor pace of 49 million visitors set in 2019.
“If the demand is okay and you can offset it with a little bit of revenue, then it’s a different story,” said Mayur Patel, regional sales director at OAG, a global air travel data provider. “But that’s not the case.”
Many European airlines are doing well with flights to Japan, but they are also affected by restrictions on flying over Russia. However, the planes to Japan are full of tourists.
As European airlines struggle financially to fly to China, Chinese carriers are filling the gap. Since these airlines continue to fly unrestricted over Russia, they have a significant competitive advantage in offering their customers cheaper tickets and shorter travel times.
Chinese airlines are aggressively increasing their capacity to fly to Europe. According to OAG, the number of available seats on Air China’s European flights increased by 24% in November compared to the same month in 2019. China Eastern’s seat capacity next month will increase by 52% compared to its European flights five years ago, and Hainan Airlines’ seat capacity will increase by 89%.
The situation is different for major European airlines, which are operating significantly fewer flights than before the coronavirus outbreak. German airlines Lufthansa, Air France and KLM each reduced the number of seats available in November by more than 40% compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to OAG.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said at a press conference last week that all flights to Europe should be forced to avoid Russian airspace to ensure a “level playing field”. He said that. He said being able to fly over Russia provided “huge advantages for Chinese airlines.”
LOT Polish Airlines announced that it has canceled its winter Beijing-Warsaw route due to “unsatisfactory booking performance and a significant decline in competitiveness.” He did not explicitly say that Chinese airlines had an advantage, but he did mention competitors using “shorter routes.” LOT said it plans to resume flights to Beijing in the summer.
When British Airways announced in the summer that it would stop flying to Beijing from October onwards, Chinese students studying abroad said this would make it even more difficult to find suitable flights home.
“How can British international students return to China?” one user wrote on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese app similar to Instagram. She noted that finding a flight ticket is even more difficult for students living in UK cities other than London.
There are other considerations besides Russian airspace.
Citing weak demand, Australian airline Qantas suspended its Sydney-Shanghai flight in July. U.S. airlines are also being urged to maintain reduced flight schedules to China. This shows how geopolitical tensions between the US and China and the weak Chinese economy are weighing on travel.
Last month, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and American Airlines each submitted requests to the Department of Transportation for special exemptions to continue the delay in resuming full quotas to China. United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said they plan to operate only a third of their weekly flights between China and the United States during the winter.
American Airlines said in its complaint that “passenger demand in the United States and China has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.” Delta Air Lines said it may need additional exemptions in the future, citing “challenges” in the Chinese market.
Joy Don contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
