Continental Airlines’ first daily nonstop flight between Shanghai and New York was launched on March 26th, which made it the first carrier to start a new cross-border route in China when the global economic situation is worsening.

Jeff Smisek, president and chief operating officer of the US airline, said that China was one of the most important markets and was very important for its future development and success in Asia.

This first daily non-stop flight connects 2 of the largest financial centre in the world. Therefore, the world’s fifth largest carrier, Continental has become only airline providing daily nonstop services from three Chinese cities to New York. Based in Houston, it also provides the flight service from Shanghai to Hong Kong.

The aviation analyst of CITIC China Securities named Li Lei said that this route would not be lucrative in the short time; however, it will definitely become the golden route over the medium to long term due to the importance of those 2 cities in the global economy.

According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, there was a 16% drop in passenger traffic on the international routes in February compared with the number in the last year.

The International Air Transport Association said that the international air travel in China was expected to have a 5 and 10 percent’s shrink this year.

On March 26th, United Airlines claimed that it would postpone the beginning of a nonstop service between San Francisco and Guangzhou to June 30, 2010. United Airlines that is located in Chicago was supposed to start the flight in 2008, but later this plan was deferred to this year.

Delta Air Lines said that they would not change their plans that provide flight service between Shanghai and Detroit from June, though there was an announcement in March that they would start to cut international capacity by an additional 10 percent from the beginning of September. An analyst said that as Shanghai is being more and more important in global finance, this city is attracting more Airlines companies.

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