Airlines face hurdles to cashing in on China re-opening

U.S. and European airlines will benefit from pent-up demand for travel to China after its recent border reopening, but route approvals, fresh COVID-19 testing
rules and not enough large aircraft remain barriers to rising sales, analysts and industry officials say.
Travel is returning to China, the world’s largest outbound tourism market worth $255 billion in 2019, after the country ended mandatory quarantines on Jan. 8. Airfares from China are now 160% higher than before the pandemic, data from travel firm ForwardKeys shows, due to limited supply.
A round-trip fare from San Francisco to Shanghai on United Airlines for a week-long trip in early March costs $3,852 in economy class and $18,369 in business class, according to a Reuters search on the airline’s website.
Global airlines are running only 11% of 2019 capacity levels to and from China in January, Cirium data shows, but the figure is expected to hit 25% by April.