Air Busan keen on Saipan route

With the extension of Air Busan’s charter flights to Saipan to March 27, the South Korean airline has reportedly expressed an interest in maintaining a regular Busan-Saipan route, as well as accommodating additional flights from Incheon to Saipan.

According to Gloria Cavanagh, Mariana E-Land vice president, the charter that was organized by E-Land’s subsidiary, Micronesia Resort Inc., may not have had the outcome they had hoped for, but it was successful in other ways.

The charter flights were supposed to last only from Jan. 23 to Feb. 27, but Cavanagh explained that through the charter, MRI was able to entice Air Busan to continue servicing the Saipan route.

“We had hoped for a better turnout. Because it was a weekly flight only, it was cost-challenging for the consumer. However, we believe it was successful in other ways. By doing this charter, we were able to convince Air Busan not to give up their already approved route to Saipan,” she said.

The E-Land vice president said Air Busan has expressed an interest in flying the Saipan route twice a week, even possibly adding two Incheon flights to its regular schedule.

“We also believe that this led Air Busan to express their interest in continued service to Saipan in a twice weekly flight pattern from Busan. They have also expressed interest in adding two flights from Incheon. This can possibly mean four weekly Air Busan flights for Saipan,” Cavanagh said.

Cavanagh said this opens an opportunity for the CNMI to be exposed to residents of Busan—exposure the CNMI hasn’t had in years.

“Air Busan had also put out much money and effort to promote the Marianas. They promoted the Marianas on their social network services, website, as well as offline on billboards and radio ads.  We have not had a flight from the Busan area in a couple of years. We hope for ourselves, as well as the whole of the CNMI economy, that there will be an expansion of interest in this area,” she said.

On behalf of E-Land, Cavanagh said she thanks the Marianas Visitors Authority and the Tourism Resumption Investment Program for their help in getting new airlines to partner with the CNMI.

“We want to thank MVA and the Korea TRIP program for the support. In this COVID environment, it is nearly impossible to add new airlines to serve our destination. We hope that this will lead to a long and successful partnership,” she said.

Air Busan is a budget carrier unit of Asiana Airlines Inc. that started providing air service to Saipan at the end of January via six scheduled charter flights.

Currently, Air Busan only offers flights on two international routes: from the southern port city of Busan to Qingdao in China, and from Busan to Saipan.

It was learned that the airline previously provided a Busan-Guam flight but dropped Guam after establishing a charter with Saipan pursuant to the travel bubble arrangement the CNMI has with South Korea.

Right now, Air Busan flies to Saipan every Sunday until March 27.