American Asks to Defer Beijing Flights

(MoneyWatch)  Remember when China slots were the "must haves" of the airline world? There weren't very many to go around, and the airlines were jumping on top of each other to get their hands on them. My how times have changed. American has asked to defer the start of its Beijing flights by one year.

Flying in general is a lot more expensive than it used to be, but those ultra long haul flights to places like China suffer the most. Combine that with a flood of new frequencies on routes to China and you've got overcapacity in the market. I've heard whispers that some of the newer flights aren't performing nearly as well as had been hoped, and that's consistent with this announcement.

United had already decided not to operate its proposed Guangzhou - San Francisco flight that should have started this past spring. (That flight would probably have been marginally profitable at best back in the day anyway.) And now, American has asked for a deferral for a flight that wasn't even scheduled to start until next April.

Now American wants to start in April 2010 instead of next April. Seems far out, no? Actually, not really. American has made the assumption that things won't be much better by next summer, and it wants to play it safe by postponing a year. Why not only delay for six months? Nobody wants to start a new route heading into the slow winter season.

So, they'll wait a year so that they can start during the busy summer of 2010. With any luck, the economy and oil prices will be more favorable by then.