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US rejects China bid for more flights
The US department of transportation has knocked back a request from China to increase the number of US-bound flights.
The DOT blocked the request to ‘maintain the parity.’
Chinese airlines currently operate four roundtrip flights a week to the US, while China has approved two weekly flights each for Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.
"That parity gives the carriers of each side the ability to operate four round-trip scheduled passenger operations each week," the DOT said.
The agency said its decision ‘should not be viewed as an escalation’ and is happy to talk to its Chinese counterparts to increase services between the two countries that benefit the airlines of both.
United Airlines is happy to resume China flights after trying for several weeks to get approval.
"We welcome efforts to allow for resumption of our service between the US and China for the benefit of our customers. United aims to re-launch our service to China in the weeks ahead," the airline said.
According to US officials, it is now up to China to open up its airspace to more flights by American carriers if it wants to do the same in the US.
"We will allow Chinese carriers to operate the same number of scheduled passenger flights as the Chinese government allows ours."
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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