American Airlines Seeks China Southern Tie-Up as Traffic Booms -br By NEIL GOUGHMARCH 27, 2017br HONG KONG — American Airlines is looking to become the second big carrier in the United Statesbr to buy its way into capturing more of the big and growing business of flying to China.br As a result, foreign carriers “try to work around this, and one way is to invest in a Chinese carrier and hopefully gain market accessbr that way,” said Ms. Png, the transportation industry analyst.br If one materializes, a deal would tie American, one of the United States’ bigbr three carriers, together with one of China’s big three state-run airlines.br But a deal could help American capture more traffic between the United States and China through arrangements like code sharing, an industry term for a partnershipbr that allows two airlines to more easily book passengers on each other’s flights.br Today, Chinese airlines account for more than 60 percent of assigned flight routes between Chinabr and the United States, said Corrine Png, a longtime transport industry analyst in Singapore.