American Airlines has announced that beginning April 2, 2006 they will have daily non-stop service between Chicago and Shanghai. This move is part of an effort to increase profitability of the Chicago hub.
Speaking to reporters, American Airlines' Asia-Pacific managing director Athar Khan said that the flights will attract an increased number of customers to the airline's domestic service in the US. As an example he cited the Chicago-New Delhi route which was launched last November. Khan explained that those flights have been drawing traffic to its Chicago hub from within the US.
Referring to the Chicago-New Delhi route Kahn offered, “It's doing very well in terms of getting customers attracted to our service,” and continued, “The planes have been full and carrying great load factors so it's been doing better than we expected.”
When asked about the financial expectations of the soon to be launched flight service Kahn would not give any estimates. He simply stated, “We obviously want to make it profitable as quickly as possible.”
Roundtrip fares for those who depart from Shanghai to Chicago will receive tickets at the cost of 2999RMB in the month of April as opposed to the 3999RMB tickets which are destined for San Francisco, New York or Seattle.
