The number of flights between the U.S. and China has barely recovered since the end of the pandemic.
A China Southern airplane. Credit: Kevin Chung via Flickr
It’s been over half a year since China dropped its zero-Covid policy and reopened its borders, but U.S.-China air travel is a long way from bouncing back. Weekly flights between the world’s two biggest economies remain down around 95 percent from pre-pandemic levels.
Geopolitics is getting in the way of a recovery. Both the U.S. and China have imposed caps on the number of permitted weekly flights by airlines from each others’ countries, although the Biden administration approved a modest increase in flights by Chinese airlines into the U.S. earlier this month, up to 12 from 8. Still, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of weekly flights that circulated in 2019. The frosty relationship and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are likely to keep travel figures depressed for a while longer.
This week, The Wire looks at the state of U.S.-China air travel: how it's changed, what’s getting in the way of a rebound, and what that means for fliers.
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