Changes to US airline websites ‘not complete’

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is still considering whether to take measures against four US airlines if the changes to their websites do not advance further, the agency said on a public statement on Thursday.

As the deadline passed on Wednesday, 40 out of 44 overseas airlines had changed their references to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao in accordance with Chinese law, with only four, all US-based, airlines remaining, according to CAAC.

United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Hawaiian Airlines all delivered their reports to the CAAC on Wednesday, where they declared the changes to their public documents are progressively coming online, and asked the authorities to inspect their websites after two weeks.

As of Thursday, all US-based airlines had removed mentions of “Taiwan” as a country when searching for cities on the island on their websites. But Delta Airlines and United Airlines also removed mentions of “China” as a country when searching even for cities on the Chinese mainland.

American Airlines kept mentions of China when searching for cities in the mainland, but did not mention Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan cities as belonging to China.

The CAAC statement noted that after a preliminary inspection, the websites of the four airlines have indeed changed their content, but it deemed the changes to be “still not complete.” The agency vowed to continue to follow closely the case and will decide whether to take administrative measures depending on the circumstances.

A representative of US-based United Airlines told Global Times that the airline had already begun to roll out changes to its systems to address China's requirements.