The US Department of Transportation plans to issue a revised order in the next few days that is likely to allow some Chinese passenger airline flights to continue, US government and airline officials said.
On Thursday, China said that it would ease COVID-19 restrictions to allow in more foreign carriers, shortly after Washington said that it planned to bar Chinese passenger airlines from flying to the US by June 16 due to Beijing’s curbs on US carriers.
The change should allow US carriers to resume once-a-week flights into a city of their choice starting on Monday, but that would be still significantly fewer than what the US government says its aviation agreement with China allows.
The department did not immediately comment.
The department on Wednesday said that Chinese carriers could operate “the same number of scheduled passenger flights as the Chinese government allows ours.”
The order was to “restore a competitive balance and fair and equal opportunity among US and Chinese air carriers,” it said.
The US order would halt the four weekly US round-trip flights by Air China (中國國際航空), China Eastern Airlines Corp (中國東方航空), China Southern Airlines Co (中國南方航空) and Xiamen Airlines Co (廈門航空).
US and airline officials have privately raised concerns about the revised Chinese rules and it is unclear if carriers would agree to fly just once a week to China when they have sought approval for two or three daily flights.
Delta Air Lines and United Airlines asked to resume flights to China this month.
Both said that they were reviewing the order from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
American Airlines is sticking with its previous plan to resume service to China at the end of October, company spokesman Ross Feinstein said.
The CAAC said that all airlines can increase the number of international flights involving China to two per week if none of their passengers test positive for COVID-19 for three consecutive weeks.
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