Air China (CA, Beijing Capital) is interested in entering into a transpacific joint-venture partnership with United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) and sees such a move as "natural" given the already existing close ties between the airlines, Vice-President & General Manager for North America Zhihang Chi has told CAPA TV.
The airlines signed an extended strategic partnership in 2016, establishing a joint strategic initiative to boost transpacific traffic. They are also partners in Star Alliance and have a wide-ranging code-share agreement.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, Air China currently proffers 20,770 weekly one-way seats on services between the US and China, which gives it 20.55% market share by capacity. United Airlines proffers 17,548 weekly one-way seats (17.36%). The third-largest carrier on the market, China Eastern Airlines, proffers 15,808 weekly one-way seats (15.64% market share).
The proposed closer collaboration between United and Air China could be seen as a response to last year's move by rival American Airlines, which, in 2017, agreed to buy a 2.76% stake in China Southern Airlines (CZ, Guangzhou) for USD200 million. In January 2018, the two carriers, which have a combined 19.79% market share by capacity between the US and China, commenced code-sharing on each other's routes.
