Chinese airlines avoid Russian airspace on new US flights

Chinese airlines have begun avoiding flights over Russian airspace on recently approved flights to the US. About it informs Reuters, citing FlightAware flight tracking data and industry officials.

In early May, the US Department of Transportation said it would allow Chinese airlines to increase U.S. passenger flights from the current eight to 12 weekly flights. On May 18, new weekly flights were approved by Air China (Beijing – New York), China Eastern (Shanghai – Los Angeles), Xiamen Airlines (Xiamen – Los Angeles) and China Southern (Guangzhou – Los Angeles).

The agency, citing FlightAware data, writes that only those aircraft that fly on recently approved flights fly around Russian airspace. In other cases, Chinese companies continue to use Russian airspace when flying to the United States.

The US Department of Transportation declined to answer a question about whether President Joe Biden’s administration required Chinese carriers to avoid Russian airspace as a condition for approving four new flights. The agency noted that the 12 weekly flights are a fraction of the more than 150 round-trip flights allowed by each side prior to the introduction of restrictions in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the US, the EU and a number of other countries closed their airspace to Russian aircraft. In response, Russia banned these countries from flying in its airspace.

In February, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez and House Republican Leader James Risch called on the Biden administration to ban Chinese and other non-US airlines from flying to the US through Russia. Later, The New York Times wrote that the US Department of Transportation had developed a corresponding draft order.

This was also requested by American airlines, which pointed out that carriers from other countries, for which the Russian skies were left open, received more benefits. Airlines for America estimated the loss of American airlines at $ 2 billion a year, because after the ban on flights in Russian airspace, the route time and fuel consumption of American airlines greatly increased.