American Airlines to move Beijing airport in 1Q21

American Airlines (AA, Dallas/Fort Worth) has announced it would use Beijing Daxing Int’l instead of Beijing Capital once its services to the Chinese capital resume. Currently, the carrier hopes to restart flights to Beijing on March 27, 2021. “Moving to Daxing International Airport in Beijing when flights return in March is going to offer our customers access to a state-of-the-art airport, with ease of connections as we plan to codeshare with our strategic partner, China Southern Airlines (CZ, Guangzhou),” Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja said. American Airlines plans to continue serving Beijing Capital through late March 2021 with cargo-only B787-9 flights. According to the ch-aviation capacities module, China Southern Airlines is the largest operator at Daxing Int’l with a 37.45% market share by capacity and 161,525 weekly departure seats scheduled in the week starting on October 19, 2020. While the carrier also serves Beijing Capital, its weekly departure capacity from that airport is just 39,696 seats for the same week. The carriers’ existing codeshare agreement covers, among others, eight domestic routes from Beijing Capital. It will have to presumably be amended to include services from Daxing by the time American Airlines restarts passenger services to Beijing.