A week ago United Airlines made an announcement about its flights to China that is not true. They said they would add 10 weekly flights between the U.S. and China. They will not do so.

.@United will resume daily flying between San Francisco and Beijing this November and will increase Shanghai to daily from San Francisco, starting October 1, 2023.

The carrier is taking advantage of increased frequencies authorized by the two governments.#AvGeek

— Seth Miller (@WandrMe) August 11, 2023

Delta announced that it would add six weekly flights between the U.S. and China. It probably won’t do this either.

Delta is expanding its flight schedule to China later this year, offering 10 weekly flights to Shanghai-Pudong International Airport (PVG) from its Seattle (SEA) and Detroit (DTW) hubs. Beginning October 29, the airline will operate daily flights from SEA and three-times-weekly service from DTW. And next March, Delta will resume four-times-weekly PVG service from its Los Angeles hub, a route last operated in February 2020.

American Airlines has now announced plans to add 3 weekly flights from Dallas to Shanghai. That is probably true.

There’s an asterisk in releases from airlines about new international routes. It’s standard boilerplate. From the Delta release, at the very bottom, “*Flights remain subject to government approval.” And neither United nor (likely) Delta will receive government approval.

At the beginning of the year I explained why air travel is roaring back, but not between the U.S. and China.

Corporate travel is down. U.S. and China tensions are high. China’s economy is slumping. Before the pandemic many of these flights weren’t profitable.

During the pandemic, China imposed strict limits on U.S. flights (as well as flights from other countries). In response the U.S. imposed limits on flying by Chinese airlines. Neither of these decisions are supported by the bilateral agreement between the U.S. and China.

U.S. airlines don’t want limits on Chinese airline flying lifted without imposing restrictions on their use of Russian airspace, limits that U.S. airlines face. That’s certainly not supported by the bilateral agreement between the U.S. and China.

And as a result of all of these things, the number of flights permitted by each nation’s airlines remain limited. The U.S. and China have agreed to increase the number of weekly flights by 12. U.S. airlines have announced 19 new weekly flights. These are notional, aspirational flights (especially in the case of United) that will not be granted. The Department of Transportation will not give United 10 out of 12 weekly permitted new flights. DOT seems reasonably likely to give American the mere 3 that it is asking for.

Before the pandemic U.S. airlines had been heavily committed to China, but they were mostly squatting routes (Chinese airlines were doing the same). Since there’s no Open Skies treaty between the U.S. and China the Department of Transportation handed out allowable frequencies. U.S. carriers tried to grab those, even when they didn’t have great flying opportunities, in case they were useful in the future and to block competitors.

Delta had purchased a stake in China Eastern and made real progress aligning with them. Naturally, then, American Airlines followed Delta and bought a stake in China Southern. But American never flew to China Southern’s home in Guangzhou, and in 2019 wrote down the value of its investment by a quarter.

United would like to grab the available authorities. Even Delta wants half! While American learned its lesson when it lost “tens of millions if not hundreds of millions” of dollars flying there.