US limits China’s airlines to two weekly flights over spat

Bloomberg

The Trump Administration, in the latest move ratcheting up tensions in US-China trade, said that the nation had continued to violate airlines’ rights by restricting flights and ordered new limits on its carriers.
Responding to a move by China to limit US passenger airlines to one flight per week each, the US Department of Transportation said it would only permit two flights a week in total from Chinese airlines.
The latest action would reduce by half the number of operations to and from the US by the four Chinese carriers that had continued those routes after severe schedule reductions due to the Covid-19 outbreak, according to the agency’s order.
The Transportation Department found that the Civil Aviation Authority of China “continues to preclude US carriers from fully exercising their rights” under an agreement guaranteeing flight access signed by the two nations.
“We find that these circumstances continue to warrant the department’s action to restore a competitive balance and fair and equal opportunity among US and Chinese air carriers in the scheduled passenger service marketplace,” the agency said in the order.
The action is the latest in a series of moves between the two nations over trade, the coronavirus pandemic and the treatment of Hong Kong. China recently paused some agriculture imports after President Donald Trump threatened steps against Hong Kong. A phase one trade deal between the nations is in jeopardy, along with billions of dollars in Boeing aircraft sales. China’s embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Airlines for America, a trade group for large carriers, didn’t comment on the specifics of the order. The group said it was “committed to ensuring US carriers have fair and equal opportunity to access the Chinese market.”
The US had issued an order that would have banned all flights from Chinese carriers if that nation didn’t agree to allow US airlines to resume flights there. United Airlines Holdings, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines Group all stopped flying to China in February as the pandemic erupted.
However, that order would have permitted one Chinese-airline flight for each one that nation granted to US carriers. While the latest US government order contains sharp criticism of China, its impact is effectively the same as the one issued.