The Beijing, China, area has nearly 22 million people, is the capitol of the world’s largest nation in terms of population (and one of
the world’s fastest growing economies) and is home to the world’s
second-busiest airport.
So you’d think that an airline could make money, good money, flying between those two cities, especially if it operated a big hub in one of
them. But American Airlines apparently could not, so it’s going to quit
trying, for now. When Beijing’s huge new $12 billion airport opens –
scheduled for October 2019 though that date could slip a bit – American
plans to relaunch the service using then, as yet unnamed Beijing airport
rather than over-crowded Beijing Capital Airport. But for a year or
more American will be out of a market that it fought for more than 20
years to serve.
American announced earlier this month that it’ll discontinue its Chicago-Beijing flying effective Oct. 20. The company admitted that
except for 2010, the first year that it flew the route, it had never
made a profit flying Chicago-Beijing.
In fact, it’s not clear that American, the world’s largest airline, will be able to turn a profit flying between Beijing and its hub at
Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport once it restarts service using
the new Beijing Airport. Competition for travel between the United
States and China has heated up beyond anyone expectations, especially
with lots of new service between China’s “second tier cities” (Shanghai,
with 34 million people, Guangzhou with 25 million, and Beijing form the
first tier) and multiple large U.S. cities.
