American Airlines is dropping money-losing flights between Chicago and
Shanghai, and Hawaiian Airlines will suspend its only route to China
because of low demand.
The airlines announced those and other route changes this week.
預定機票
The
decisions reflect growing competition from Chinese carriers and rising
fuel prices that have made once-marginal routes unprofitable.
American, the world’s largest carrier, said it will end Chicago-Shanghai service in October.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline recently decided to cut flights between Chicago and Beijing, also in October.
In
a podcast on the airline’s website, vice president of network planning
Vasu Raja said the routes “have been colossal loss makers.”
American flies to Shanghai and Beijing from both Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth.
It
disclosed the latest pullback from China and reduced flights between
Chicago and Tokyo as it announced additional flights to Europe, most of
them limited to the summer peak-travel season.
Hawaiian Airlines
said in a statement it will suspend its three flights a week between
Honolulu and Beijing in October. The carrier started the route in 2014
and had already downgraded it from daily service. Hawaiian said it will
shift planes to other routes that fit its expansion plans.
Both
airlines said they were keeping alive the possibility of resuming the
flights in the future. Hawaiian CEO Peter Ingram said his company still
believes “in China’s future as a robust market for the Hawaiian vacation
experience.”
Chinese airlines have added flights and destinations in recent years, sometimes undercutting U.S. rivals on prices.
Separately,
the Chinese government pressured U.S. and other foreign airlines this
year to describe the island of Taiwan as part of China on airline
websites, a move that the U.S. carriers initially resisted.
Meanwhile
spot prices for jet fuel have risen nearly 40 percent in the last year,
tracking the spike in oil prices. Fuel competes with labor as the
biggest cost at most airlines.
The Wall