Air Canada said on Wednesday it would increase direct flights between Canada and China, which remain below pre-COVID levels even though the carrier has added capacity to other Asia Pacific routes.
Canada’s largest carrier said in a statement it will be resuming daily service from Vancouver to Beijing on January 15 and will be increasing its Shanghai flights to daily starting on December 7.
The news arm of China’s aviation regulator said earlier that the move came after Ottawa last week removed a 2022 limit on how many services Chinese carriers could fly to Canada.
CAAC News, the official newspaper of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said the increased flights between China and Canada would bolster trade and their economies and promote further recovery of China-Canada air transport. A Canadian source confirmed the development to Reuters.
Canada agreed to stabilise ties with China in July, committing to “pragmatic” engagement with the world’s second-largest economy, even as trade remained a point of bilateral friction.
Flights between both Canada and the United States and China have not ramped back up after COVID-era travel restrictions ended, even as airlines add more seats to other destinations in Asia Pacific. Air Canada, which reports earnings on Friday, said earlier this year the carrier expects stronger demand for Pacific routes in the back half of 2024.
Chinese airlines are accelerating applications for additional flights, the CAAC article added.
However, in the United States, major U.S. passenger airlines have put off resuming some flights to China, citing lagging travel demand between the world’s two largest economies.
AIRSPACE CHALLENGE
In 2019, Air Canada was flying up to 35 times a week to China – including from Toronto – while Chinese carriers operated 76 direct round-trip flights, Cirium flight schedule data shows.
China later all but shut its borders to travellers due to a zero COVID policy and suspended many inbound flights.
Canada in February 2022 said Chinese carriers could fly only six round trips a week into Canada, and there could be no direct flights between Canada and Beijing.
These restrictions were lifted on Friday, a Canadian Transportation Agency order said.
“We value Canada’s initiative and hope Canada will continue to create good conditions for normal personnel exchanges between both countries,” Lin Jian, spokesperson at the Chinese foreign ministry, said at a regular news conference on Wednesday.
Canadian carriers are at a disadvantage to Chinese carriers because they have not been able to fly over Russian air space since the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022.
This makes Canadian flights to China out of Toronto, in Canada’s east, commercially unattractive due to the extended flight time.
Chinese carriers have continued to take shorter northern routes to Europe and North America over Russia’s vast airspace and have over time gained market share from non-Chinese carriers due to this competitive advantage.
FRICTIONS
Bilateral relations, established in 1970, turned icy in 2018 after Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada and China subsequently arrested two Canadians in China. All three were later released, but Ottawa’s allegations of Chinese interference in Canada have kept relations strained.
Both countries have seen heightened trade friction in recent months after Canada said it was “absolutely” considering banning Chinese-made software in EVs, among measures to counter what it calls overcapacity and a security threat.
Beijing in September launched an anti-discrimination investigation amongst restrictive measures taken by Canada, including additional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminium products.
In July, Beijing agreed to normalise relations with Ottawa after Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s visit to China, the first by a Canadian foreign minister in seven years.
