Passenger yields on international routes will remain in decline this year because of fierce competition in the aviation sector, according to Asia’s largest carrier, China Southern Airlines. Luo Laijun, Acting Director of the airline’s Commercial Steering Committee made the prediction as the carrier announced an increase in flights to the U.S. under a code-sharing arrangement with American Airlines, its new minority shareholder with a 8.83% share. “We will operate more non-stop flights to the U.S. as part of our cooperation with American Airlines,” said Wang Changshun, Chairman of China Southern, starting with 10 flights in a code-sharing agreement. China Southern’s net profit had surged 35% last year to CNY5.04 billion as it repaid dollar debt ahead of schedule to mitigate the impact of the yuan’s depreciation. However, yield per revenue passenger kilometer dropped both for domestic and international routes, down 3.6% and 11.1% respectively in 2016 from the previous year.