Air Canada and the US FAA said on Tuesday they are investigating a weekend flight that landed on a San Francisco runway after the crew was told to abort, the second recent incident involving the carrier at the busy California airport. Air Canada Flight AC781, an A320 originating in Montreal, landed at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on Sunday after receiving proper clearance only to learn that a subsequent message from air traffic control was not received by the crew, a spokeswoman for the airline said by email. Air traffic control at SFO had instructed the Air Canada crew multiple times to execute a go-around because the controller was not certain that a preceding arrival would be completely clear of the runway before the jet was due to land, said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor. “The Air Canada crew did not acknowledge any of the controller’s instructions,” Gregor said by email. “Upon landing, the crew was informed the tower had attempted unsuccessfully to contact the aircraft, however, the message was not received by the crew,” an Air Canada spokeswoman wrote in a separate email. The FAA was already investigating a separate incident from July after an Air Canada pilot lined up to land on a taxiway at SFO where four other planes were waiting to depart.<br/>
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Air China will open Shenzhen-Los Angeles direct services Dec. 7 to replace the current Shenzhen-Beijing-Los Angeles route, which opened Feb. 1 in response to the increase in Chinese outbound traffic. The new direct Boeing 787-9 service will be 3X weekly. In 2016, the number of passengers booking round trips between China and the US exceeded 5m, up 5.3% over 4.8m in 2015. For the 10-year 2005-2015 period, this number reached more than 30m. In recent years, the Beijing-based carrier has accelerated opening intercontinental routes, for example, to Frankfurt, in May 2016. Air China subsidiary Shenzhen Airlines operates a fleet of nearly 200 aircraft on more than 220 domestic and international routes to 74 destinations with more than 179 daily departures. Industry sources say generous government subsidies and favorable policies have better positioned Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport to open more international routes and compete with bigger players such as Guangzhou Baiyun and Hong Kong international airports.<br/>