A United Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft lands at San Francisco International Airport on March 13 in Burlingame, California. Photo: VCG

Shanghai will accept flights from US-owned airlines, and four flights per week between Chinese mainland and the US will be allowed from each side, domestic news site Caixin reported on Monday.

Two US airlines -- United Airlines and Delta Air Lines -- have received access confirmation letters from the Shanghai airport to resume flights to Shanghai, and the related flights are waiting for final approval from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), media reports said.

The routes earlier sought by Delta Air Lines were from Seattle and Detroit to Shanghai, while those of United Airlines were from San Francisco to Beijing, Chengdu, and Shanghai, as well as a route from Newark to Shanghai.

The CAAC on June 4 announced plans to loosen international flight restrictions by allowing all qualified foreign airlines to resume services to China as of June 8. Each airline could apply for one flight per week to one qualified destination in China and apply for access confirmation from the destination.

Per media reports, both US airlines applied for flight routes to Shanghai and have now obtained confirmation letters from the Chinese city, but still need to wait for the final approval of the CAAC to know whether the flights could resume and how many flights could be resumed per week.

The route applied for by Delta Air Lines is from Seattle to Shanghai, which is expected to resume from Thursday, Caixin reported.

Since the US authority earlier noted that only two round-trip passenger flights of Chinese airlines will be allowed operate each week, starting from Tuesday, it is now in doubt whether the current four Chinese airlines' flights to the US would remain in service.

CAAC did not reply to the Global Times' inquiries.