China, Japan Agree to Double Flights Next Spring

Flights between Tokyo’s Haneda airport and two Chinese cities will double next spring under an agreement between China and Japan announced Wednesday.

The pact calls for the addition of four flights between Haneda and Shanghai and the startup of four flights between Haneda and Guangzhou at the end of next March. That would double the total number of flights from Haneda to China to 16 per day. The flights will be allocated equally to Chinese and Japanese airlines.

The agreement also calls for adding four flights between Haneda and Beijing tentatively at the end of March 2014.

The agreement also places all the airports of each nation — with the exception of the airports in Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai — under an open sky agreement. That would allows airlines to open new routes and set the number of flights between all airports with the exceptioin of the excluded ones.

China is the 18th nation or region to have signed an open sky pact with Japan.