Questions and Answers

I flew from Guangzhou to Chicago via Tokyo by ANA when I first came to the States for school. I wasn’t thinking about this back then coz even though I could fly China Southern nonstop, I’d still fly ANA or Korean Air over Chinese airlines in a heart beat. However, it does surprise me there’s no direct flight from Guangzhou to Chicago, between these 2 major cities. Chinese airlines I feel like focus mainly on coast to coast destinations such as Vancouver, LAX, New York, Boston, and I guess Houston. But Chicago, seems to be forgotten completely in their route map. Why? Not enough passengers to fill the seats? Not enough slots at ORD/CAN? China Southern couldn’t figure out a profitable schedule?

Thanks in advance.

It could be that United and American control the vast majority of flights at O’Hare, and China Southern is a member of SkyTeam. So, I’d imagine a non-sop flight would have very little feeder traffic

I agree with Ricky that the connecting traffic is probably a huge factor. AA & UA both have hubs there but not DL. I was surprised to see that none of the Chinese airlines fly into Detroit, which is Delta’s mid-continent hub for most of their international traffic. Delta does have non-stops to Beijing and Shanghai, but only on their own planes.

There’s also a lot of capacity on the Chicago to Hong Kong route, with both United and Cathay Pacific having at least daily flights. I’d guess that proximity to the Hong Kong airport is a big reason why none of the US Airlines fly nonstop to Guangzhou. Another example of that is how United couldn’t make their route from SFO to Hangzhou work, given how close the city is to Shanghai.

So the routes from Guangzhou are all up to where China Southern feels like flying. Since they fly into SFO and YVR, neither of which have a big Skyteam presence, they don’t choose just Delta hubs. But I guess they don’t think the demand for a nonstop from Chicago is there.