On the last occasions when we left China the story the airlines gave us is that there are no seats available for our flight. And none is available for the next few months. If we want to leave we must upgrade our tickets to get seats. This upgrade amounted to 1600 Yuan (about $193 US) for the two of us. Understand that this is an upgrade from one tourist class to another tourist class. The first quote we got was for 2400 Yuan (US $290). Our boss got us an upgrade for 1600 Yuan.