American Airlines has amended its bid for Dallas-Beijing service because the westbound flights are 15 minutes longer than allowed under the current pilot’s contract. To get around it, the flights would fly from Dallas to Chicago and change flight crews before continuing to Beijing. On the return, they would go nonstop to Dallas.
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Most industry experts, including the analysis by Today in the Sky, seem to agree it dooms American’s bid, and boosts United and Continental to duke it out for the privilege. United offers its DC service versus Continental’s Newark service. We’ve already weighed in on this subject before and believe that this change only eliminates an opponent whose contribution to China service was negligible.
