Where you’ll fly in 2025: More to Shanghai and less to New York

International flights into Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong are set to jump in 2025, almost completing the cities’ recoveries to pre-pandemic totals. It’s a different story in the rest of the world as the industry navigates cost-of-living crises, broken supply chains and regional conflicts. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd.’s services into Shanghai, China’s financial heart, are set to surge 48% to more than 4,000 in the 12 months through November next year, according to airline schedules compiled by Cirium. Air China Ltd., China Southern Airlines Co. and Hainan Airlines Holding Co. are among others planning to operate hundreds more overseas flights into Beijing versus the previous 12 months, the data show. With foreign visitor numbers to China still in the doldrums, Chinese carriers inevitably account for many of the additional international services. More Chinese citizens are venturing overseas and back following a post-Covid domestic travel boom. Meanwhile, international air traffic to established hubs such as London, Dubai and Doha will falter or even reverse next year, the schedules indicate. In New York, the volume of incoming overseas flights will decline in the year through November, the Cirium data show. That would be the first decrease since the pandemic halted global travel in 2020.<br/>