American Airlines cancels Beijing flight – no clearance?

A message from Danwei reader Kevin Doyle:

Was supposed to fly to Beijing this morning from Chicago on American Airline’s new ORD-PEK route. After standing at the desk for an hour and a half, the rep said that the flight was canceled because AA hasn’t gotten governmental clearance yet or something… They said that they hoped to have it ‘fixed’ by Friday. Don’t know how many people that this will affect.

American Airlines has this on their website:

Update On Beijing Service

American Airlines greatly regrets that we are unable to launch our new daily nonstop service from Chicago to Beijing today as planned. Despite our expectations, which were based on international aviation industry guidelines and procedures, American has not received commercially viable landing and take-off slots for Beijing Capital International Airport from Chinese aviation authorities. We apologize for the inconvenience that this situation has caused our customers and hope that the issue of landing and take-off slots at Beijing can be quickly resolved.

Customers impacted by the cancelled flights will have the option to be rebooked or receive a full refund to the original form of payment. We are in the process of contacting customers confirmed on these flights to assist with re-accommodation.