Previous Story
Asiana flies to NMI using bigger plane
|
Posted on Aug 18 2005
Owing to high passenger demand, Asiana Airlines will use a larger aircraft for its Saipan-Seoul flights beginning today.
Asiana’s move offers a glimpse of hope for the local tourism industry, which has been suffering from reduced airline seats capacity and bracing for the impact of Japan Airlines’ looming withdrawal from Saipan.
Kwang Joong Kim, general manager of Asiana’s Saipan office, said the Korean air carrier would utilize the 310-seat Boeing 777 aircraft for its daily Saipan-Seoul service starting today through the end of August.
Currently, Asiana operates the flight using the 260-seater Boeing 767 airplane twice a week. For the five remaining days, the airline uses Airbus 321, which can seat only 177 passengers.
The shift to a bigger aircraft will provide the destination additional capacity of at least 1,397 seats until the end of August.
Kim also reported that from Sept. 1 through Oct. 31, Asiana would use a Boeing 767 aircraft for the daily flights. This is expected to result in an increase of at least 3,569 seats to the Northern Marianas’ current airline capacity.
Kim added that Asiana would use an even larger aircraft if passenger demand continues to increase. “We will keep trying to increase seats availability,” he said.
Earlier, Asiana announced plans to provide via-Seoul flights between Japan and Saipan starting October 2005, which is about the same time that JAL will suspend scheduled flights from Tokyo and Osaka to Saipan.
Kim had said that the airline was looking at tapping the Japanese travel markets of Sendai, Toyama, Fukuoka, Yonago, and Fukushima for the via-Seoul service.
He had expressed confidence that the service would receive a favorable response from Japanese travelers, especially those who have to fly to Tokyo, Osaka, or Nagoya in order to access Saipan flights.
“Most people who want to visit Saipan, but live outside Narita, Osaka or Nagoya, have to pay a lot for domestic flights. It’s actually more expensive to take domestic flights than to travel from a city in Japan to Inchon,” Kim had noted.
