The U.S. Department of Transportation preliminarily approved applications filed by two US airlines to launch two new routes to China.

Continental Airlines is expected to launch a non-stop passenger flight from the Newark Liberty International Airport near New York to Beijing on March 25 at the earliest, with one flight each day lasting 13 hours. American Airlines, the largest airline in the United States, will also commence operations of a new non-stop flight from Chicago to Shanghai.

On the same day the U.S. Department of Transportation also approved the launch of another 12 US-China cargo flights every week, allowing FedEx, UPS, Northwest Airlines and Polar Air Cargo to operate three flights each.

The approval was the fruit of the Sino-US agreement on expanding airline services, which the two countries signed last June. According to this agreement, both nations can increase the number of airlines operating Sino-US routes from the previous 4 to 9, and both can increase the number of flights from the current 54 to 249 by phases over the next 6 years.

(Chinanews.cn February 24, 2005)