The number of flights between China and the rest of the world is still around half as it was pre Covid. The high prices are simply a function of too much demand (people wanting to travel to China) and not enough supply (seats on airplanes available). Closing off Russian airspace has also hurt, making flights use more fuel and many direct flights less feasible.
Tell me about it. My favorite airline from Beijing to anywhere in Europe was Aeroflot, the Burger King at the airport in Moscow served beer. Glad you can find flights so cheap, all I can find from Seattle ATM is $2k/person, most with one day layovers. We used to have so many direct flights a day, itβs around 30+ hours now unless you want to pay even more for something that is only 20 hours.
Far Eastern territory airspace being closed really hurts the west coast.
