American Airlines Touts Backing for Flights

American Airlines executives touted the growing support for their application to fly to Beijing from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on Monday.

The Fort Worth airline said more than 82,000 people have sent letters of support to the U.S. Department of Transportation. American also has received endorsements from 28 U.S. senators, 68 House members, nine governors and more than 100 mayors and other elected officials.

That's about double the support the airline had last year when it was bidding for the right to fly to Shanghai from Chicago, said Will Ris, the airline's senior vice president of government affairs, in a call to reporters. That effort was ultimately successful.

"The support has been overwhelming," Ris said. "It's far beyond anything we expected."

American is in a stiff fight with three other airlines that want to fly to China next year. United Airlines has proposed a flight between Washington Dulles Airport and Beijing, Continental Airlines wants to connect Newark, N.J., and Shanghai, and Northwest Airlines has applied for a flight from Detroit to Shanghai.

The Transportation Department is expected to select one airline's route around the end of the year.

American's supporters in Congress include Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., chairman of the Transportation, Treasury and Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; and Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the House majority whip.

Officials with Houston-based Continental said Monday they had amassed about 80,000 signatures from supporters of their flight.

In a statement, Continental executives derided American's planned flight as serving a "miniscule" market between D/FW and Beijing.

But American officials say that their flight would allow one-stop service to China from 90 cities and would be the first flight there from the South.

Ris took issue with a recent economic study by United that its flight would generate $330 million in annual economic benefits. A study by Dallas/Fort Worth Airport valued the American proposal at $180 million.

"We'll be challenging [the United] study," Ris said. "We'll be pointing out its flaws."

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