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American Airlines Inc. gave its pilots' union few of the concessions the pilots wanted in exchange for flying a new China route on Tuesday.

It instead told union negotiators that most of those issues should be discussed during regular contract talks.

The carrier suggested that it and the Allied Pilots Association use the same agreement they signed in 2005 to cover flying for a new route between Chicago and New Delhi, India.

American has applied for U.S. approval to fly between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Beijing.

By year's end, federal transportation officials are expected to pick a winner from the competing applications of American, United Airlines Inc., Northwest Airlines Inc. and Continental Airlines Inc. for U.S.-China routes.

"In the near term, we need to focus our energy on competing for the route," American spokeswoman Sue Gordon said Tuesday. "Decoupling our short-term and long-term objectives allows us to devote our collective efforts to this opportunity."

Union spokesman Gregg Overman said the airline "cherry-picked" what it wanted from the union's proposal and disregarded everything else.

"It's clear that management chose to reject out of hand just about every element of our proposed letter of agreement that provided value to the pilots," Mr. Overman said. "We're definitely disappointed by that response, and we remain committed to securing value for our pilots in this and future negotiations."

The Beijing flights are expected to exceed the maximums allowed in the union contract: 14 1/2 hours for scheduled flight times and 16 hours for time on duty. The union says that flights on a route between Chicago and Shanghai, China, are routinely exceeding those maximums as well and has lodged a grievance.

In a 2005 letter covering the Chicago-New Delhi flights, the union and airline agreed to maximums of 18 hours for scheduled duty periods and 20 hours' maximum duty time.

In letters e-mailed Tuesday afternoon, the airline proposed a maximum of 17 hours for scheduled duty and a maximum duty period of 19 hours.

Those are the same hours that the union had proposed in a Nov. 16 letter -- although the union's letter had many more concessions to the pilots in other areas not related specifically to the China flight.

Among the demands: guaranteed pay for a pilot's entire sequence of flights, even if the pilot's schedule gets disrupted; the right to use flight attendant jump seats if those employee seats aren't used by attendants; and the right to have first claim to empty passenger seats ahead of other employees when commuting to and from work.

Ms. Gordon said those items should be discussed during contract negotiations, which began in September and aren't expected to conclude for some time. The pilot proposals "are broader than D/FW-Beijing," she said.

The jump-seat proposal has upset the union representing American's attendants, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which told the pilots' union that the pilots don't have the right to ask for the jump seats.