Why European Airlines Are Halting Flights to China

On November 9, as flight SK998 from Shanghai to Copenhagen completed its journey, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), the largest airline in Northern Europe, quietly shut down its route to China. Five days earlier, the airline, which had maintained operations even during the pandemic, had already initiated the process of self-cancellation for its WeChat public account. Going forward, Air China will be the only carrier available for direct flights from China to Denmark.

Since 2024, in addition to SAS Scandinavian Airlines, several airlines have announced reductions in routes to the Chinese market on Europe-China routes, including Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Lufthansa, and LOT Polish Airlines.

The latest development is that KLM, a subsidiary of Air France-KLM, which had previously remained inactive, is also quietly cutting back its flights. On December 4, Caixin reviewed the Cirium flight schedule and found that in January 2025, KLM will reduce its flights from Amsterdam to Beijing and Shanghai from the current frequency of seven flights per week to five and six flights per week, respectively.

From November 27 to December 3, 2024, the number of round-trip flights on the China-Europe route was 855, a year-on-year increase of 21.6%. Among these, Chinese airlines saw their market share rise to 84.2%, while foreign airlines dropped to 15.8%. As of now, there are only seven foreign airlines still operating China-Europe routes during the autumn and winter season, half the number of 14 from the same period in 2019.

It is widely known that following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Europe and the U.S. closed their airspace to Russian airliners and vice versa. This restricted American and European airlines from directly traversing Russian airspace en route to Asia, adding over 10% to detour costs on average. Furthermore, with travel demand between China and Europe yet to rebound to pre-pandemic levels, flight occupancy rates remain generally low. European carriers, constrained by commercial return pressures and disadvantaged in competition with Chinese airlines, have been compelled to retreat to "stop the bleeding."

"The primary reason for reducing routes still centers on profitability. Faced with aircraft delivery delays and limited resources, European airlines prioritize deploying capacity to routes with higher demand and better returns," said Yu Zhanfu, a veteran independent civil aviation consultant. He believes the suspension of flights by foreign airlines is mainly due to commercial considerations. After the pandemic, Sino-European economic and trade relations have cooled, leading to decreased demand for travel.

Some North American routes that previously required detours have recently shown signs of loosening restrictions. Overall, North American airlines have been more proactive than their European counterparts. In early December, United Airlines applied to open a new Los Angeles-Beijing route, planning to launch on May 1, 2025, with three flights per week. Previously, Delta Air Lines indicated that it would resume the Shanghai to Los Angeles route in June 2025. At the end of October, Canada lifted pandemic-era restrictions on Chinese airlines, which had limited the recovery rate of Sino-Canadian routes to below 9%, effectively "thawing" these routes. From November 27 to December 3, the number of round-trip flights between China and Canada reached 43, recovering to 11.2% of the 2019 level, with Chinese and foreign carriers accounting for 81.4% and 18.6%, respectively. The number of round-trip flights between China and the U.S. stood at 181, recovering to 21.9% of the 2019 level, with a roughly equal share between Chinese and foreign carriers.