Flights to Shanghai from U.S.....shortest even with layovers
 

I HATE long flights and want to go to Shanghai from Phx. I'm willing to spend extra freq. flyer miles if I can flind shorter jaunts. I can fly Continental or American...American sends you thru Chicago then 14:40 min. Anyone recommend another route? Shanghai is my goal but I want to go to at least 1 or 2 (only 2 weeks) other cities, so maybe go there first to shorten the flights? I much prefer layovers than sitting on a plane for 15 hours. I never sleep on a plane!!!

continental has a non stop from newark daily...

they must have something from the west coast as well

United, SFO to Shanghai ~10 hours

From the UA website it appears that the UA flight referred to above (UA 858) is 10:46 hours for the <i>Shanghai – SFO</i> portion. On the flight out, it is 13 hours from SFO <u>to</u> Shanghai (UA 857). I believe this is related to headwinds. I think the United fight looks like a good choice in terms of making a connection from PHX and the fact that I like to change planes at SFO far more than Chicago.

UA also has non-stops from SFO to/from Beijing. They look like this:

SFO – Beijing 12.5 hours US 888 (this is a very lucky flight number by the way)
Beijing – SFO 11 hours UA 889

So perhaps you could fly into Beijing first and return out of Shanghai. These may be the shortest flights. This would also save you some backtracking within the PRC.

Continental also has a nonstop flight from LAX.

CO's only flight to PVG is from EWR.

UA is the fastest between Shanghai and Phoenix. Period.