Since 2004, the Transportation Security Administration has been required to check all foreign flight students against terrorism, criminal and immigration databases.
South Korea has opened Inchon International Airport, a mammoth project 32 miles west of downtown Seoul that has replaced Kimpo Airport for virtually all foreign flights.
Under the plan to be unveiled this week, all foreign flights operated by Delta would be moved to Terminal 4, which would in turn gain nine additional passenger gates and an expanded baggage claim and customs area.
But as Pakistanis were only allowed one foreign flight a year, he then had to sneak out of the country by himself, crossing by land into Afghanistan.
Jet already has a few foreign flights, including routes to London, Katmandu and Colombo.
Government officials defend the sharpened scrutiny of foreign flight students as a long-overdue effort to rein in a sprawling, loosely regulated system that was easily exploited by the Sept. 11 hijackers, a third of whom trained at American flight schools.
The department's projections see demand for flights growing at only 1-3% a year between now and 2050 meaning that the British average of one foreign flight per person per year would rise to only 1.24 by 2030.
Mr Zhiyuan concedes that "the lack of foreign flight connections is hindering the international expansion".
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Congress instructed TSA agents to vet foreign flight students.
Another government official said the Justice Department was simply not ready to study the backgrounds of every foreign flight student.
Back in the early 2000s, one senior Japanese airline executive told me that Japanese airlines would never join international alliances because Japanese customers had special service needs and didn't feel comfortable being served by foreign flight attendants.
