The Chinese carrier is pulling out of New York, leaving its US partner to move passengers from the Big Apple to Asia. Northwest flies from New York's La Guardia airport to Detroit, connecting to its four weekly departures to Beijing. The passenger-side alliance has ramifications for cargo. To compensate for the lost cargo space in the New York market, Air China is adding a third weekly Boeing 747-200 freighter to JFK airport, stopping at Chicago on the way back to China.
All routes go through Anchorage.
Air China also serves Chicago with its weekly B747f run to Los Angeles. However, in the long run the carrier intends to withdraw the freighter from Los Angeles and put it in New York market instead, to run four weekly freighters stopping at JFK and Chicago, deputy general manager of cargo sales and marketing for North America, John Chang, said, adding that there was little point running one cargo flight a week to the US west coast. There is abundant freighter capacity in LA already. KAL, Asiana, EVA and China Airlines all have freighters to LA, and there is United too. The airline is due to take delivery of three B777s in the autumn.