By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) – The head of industry group Airlines for America said on Thursday that US carriers oppose adding more direct flights from China to the United States even as Chinese President Xi Jinping raised the idea.
Chris Sununu, who heads the group representing American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and others, said US carriers continue to be hampered by the fact that Chinese counterparts are allowed to overfly Russia on eight flights. He said he has been advocating to Trump administration officials not to give in.
“It’s not just a minor thing. It’s a huge cost to the airlines to have to go around Russia,” Sununu said in an interview.
At an event in Washington on Thursday, Xi raised the idea of increasing flights. Currently, the United States and China each can operate around 50 round-trip flights per week.
“Our two sides may also increase direct flights to facilitate two-way travel and trade,” Xi said.
The White House did not immediately comment.
More than 150 weekly round-trip passenger flights were allowed by each side before restrictions were imposed in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Until August 2023, Chinese and US carriers could each fly only 12 a week between the two countries.
Airlines for America last week opposed the request of Air China to fly more scheduled flights because US airlines are effectively banned from flying from the US East Coast to China because they cannot access Russian airspace, while Chinese carriers can for eight US flights.
“It’s imbalanced. It’s unfair,” Sununu said. “They already have an advantage with the eight flights. To give them even more of an advantage would be huge,” he said. “Don’t make it worse for us.”
The US in March 2022 banned Russian flights from American airspace after Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, which prompted Russia to ban US carriers from overflying the country. The United States has not banned other countries from overflying Russia but struck a deal with China in 2023 that additional flights approved would not do so.
In October 2025, the US Transportation Department proposed banning Chinese airlines from flying over Russia on routes to and from the United States, saying the reduced flight time this practice enables puts American carriers at a disadvantage.
But the proposal faced opposition from other US agencies and was shelved ahead of trade talks with China.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Franklin Paul and Bill Berkrot)
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