(Yicai) Sept. 27 -- US authorities have given permission for China’s three biggest carriers -- Air China, China Eastern Airlines, and China Southern Airlines -- to add more flights between the two countries.

Air China can add a flight between Beijing and Los Angeles and two between Beijing and San Francisco each week from Oct. 29, the US transport department said yesterday. China Eastern can add two weekly flights between Shanghai and San Francisco and China Southern one between Wuhan and San Francisco, making the capital of Hubei province the latest Chinese city to have direct flights to the United States.

On Aug. 10, the US transport department announced that it would approve six more China-US round-trip routes operated by Chinese airlines per week for a total of 18 from Sept. 1.

Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern are the only three to have received approval to operate direct routes between China and the US. Other Chinese carriers that had flights between the two countries before the pandemic, including Hainan Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, and Beijing Capital Airlines, have still not been allowed to resume flights.

Last month, the average round-trip ticket price from China to the US was about CNY20,000 (USD2,740), according to online travel platform Qunar. But as flight numbers climbed, prices began to fall to about CNY10,000 for the period after the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday ending on Oct. 6.

The cheapest routes are those between Shanghai and San Francisco and Los Angeles, with tickets after the eight-day Golden Week holiday reaching around CNY8,000 (USD1,095), Qunar’s data shows.

But prices for China-US return tickets are still far from the average CNY3,000 before the pandemic when the total number of weekly flights between the two countries was more than 300.

Editor: Futura Costaglione