China Southern Airlines mulling A380 service to New York City

China Southern Airlines is planning to boost its services to the U.S. east coast. The airline wants to make flights on its Guangzhou-New York JFK route into a daily service. The airline is hoping to deploy its Airbus A380 aircraft to serve the route.

The airline presently has a fleet of only five Airbus A380 aircrafts, which have largely remained under-utilized. The airline is offering only one year-round flight to Los Angeles and a seasonal service to Sydney.

China Southern Airlines initially started operating flights between Guangzhou and New York JFK with the help of Boeing 777-300ER aircrafts. The flights were launched in August 2014 and operated four-times every week.

The airline has indicated that it wants to serve the Guangzhou-New York JFK route with a daily Airbus A380 service. At the same time the airline also said that if this doesn’t happen then it might consider boosting its Boeing 777-300ER service on the route as well with 10 weekly flights.

For quite some time now leading Chinese carriers have been making extensive efforts to extend and stabilize their operations in the U.S. east coast. Travel experts however say that the focus on U.S. east coast might lead to over-capacity and subsequent losses in the U.S.-China market, which could hamper growth.

Cathay Pacific Airways is another airline offering five daily flights between New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Hong Kong International Airport (HKG). Guangzhou is only less than an hour away from Hong Kong. Other leading Chinese carriers Air China and China Eastern Airlines are already serving the U.S. east coast for quite long.