Passengers can travel directly from Shanghai to Chicago from Oct. 31 onwards, according to sources with the carrier United Airlines.

The American company announced the decision shortly after a new Sino-US aviation cooperation agreement was reached.

Nowadays travelers have to connect flight in one of the three cities of Tokyo, San Francisco and Los Angeles when going from China to the east coast in the United States. The new Shanghai-Chicago route will cut the whole journey by five hours and reduce flight fare by one third.

According to the UA arrangement, Boeing 777 will be used to fly the daily route. Other specifics about the flight are still subject to further approval by the Chinese and American governments.

Flights connecting China and the United States have been pretty busy in recent years. The occupation rates of UA flights linking Shanghai and San Francisco exceeded 90 percent in the past months.

The new flight is widely expected to better serve the needs of increasingly frequent traveling exchanges between the two countries, experts say.

(Xinhua News Agency July 6, 2004)