American, Continental, Northwest, and United Airlines submitted briefs today to the U.S. Department of Transportation as part of their bid for the one China route to be awarded this year. The DOT, charged with choosing the best route to serve the public interest, has to decide which of the four cities: Dallas-Fort Worth, Newark, Detroit, or Washington will receive the service. Only the New York area has a non-stop flight to China currently. Because the Chinese government restricts flights, four U.S. carriers today fly non-stop to China from New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.
The proposed service from Newark’s Liberty Airport would be to Shanghai. China Eastern Airlines announced last week it would start Shanghai-New York(JFK) service in December. Northwest’s proposed Detroit service would also serve Shanghai, whereas American’s Dallas proposal and United’s Washington-Dulles proposal would both serve Beijing. Dallas would open the first service to China from the South, and Washington would link the two nation’s capitals.
The arguments are many. For a financial outlook, we often turn to SeekingAlpha, whose daily summary of the Wall Street Journal is indispensible. They recently summarized the Journal’s analysis of the China route competition. We will be monitoring them for more analysis as things proceed.
American and United have launched websites to have the public sign petitions to submit to the DOT.