American Airlines delays launch of Chicago-Beijing service

American Airlines stated (26-Apr-2010) it is "unable" to launch its proposed daily Chicago-Beijing service on 26-Apr-2010 as planned, with the carrier to delay start-up tentatively until 04-May-2010. The carrier stated that it "has not received commercially-viable landing and take-off slots for Beijing Capital International Airport from Chinese aviation authorities". [more]

American Airlines: "In line with established International Air Transport Association (IATA) and industry guidelines and procedures which give preferential treatment to new-entrant carriers to a market, American applied for commercially reasonable - and industry accepted - slots at Beijing in October 2009. American's planned flights were sold with the reasonable expectation that, in common with industry practice, viable slots would be confirmed in time for the scheduled start date of the new service, which had been approved by the governments of both the United States and China. Until American receives viable operating slots, we will not be able to fly between Chicago and Beijing and thus cannot deliver air transportation services to the American and Chinese people. We are proactively delaying the start of our flight from Chicago to Beijing until May 4, 2010, and we are hopeful that the slot issue can be resolved by that time.," Company Statement, 26-Apr-2010.