Micronesia’s hometown airline no more

It was with a bit of tongue-in-cheek that I wrote “Celebrating the De-Launching of CO 890” two weeks ago. I first moved to the Marshall Islands in 1982, and since Air Mike had the monopoly on the route from Honolulu to Koror and Saipan, priding itself as the hometown airline of Micronesia, I had always been partial to the “old blue on the planet” logo of its parent company, Continental Airlines.

You see, I went with my wife and two daughters to the Yokwe Atolls as a volunteer member of the Ecumenical Institute of Chicago, and its secular arm, the Institute of Cultural Affairs. As part of a family ecumenical religious Order experiment, for our monastic habit we wore blue. Old-timers in the region still remember a brief period in the late ’70s and early ’80s when members of a group known as the Blue Shirts promoted a highly participatory and community level asset-based human development methodology. In the highly stratified social classes of Micronesia, raising the flag for equal rights and equal responsibility did not often find welcome mats in homes and offices. We even bedeviled the likes of the old Micronesian Legislature on Saipan.

In Majuro, we pushed one and all to look at the global trends and imagine its manifestations and implications in the local economy. We encouraged the political process to have the local vision and aspiration to be more assertive of its prerogatives and empowering of its rights. We promoted the role of the indigenous culture in defining its critical and crucial role in socioeconomic development and political formation. For travels within, to and from the region, we got familiar with Air Mike. In Majuro in the early ’80s, the arrivals and departures of flights twice a week even at midnight drew crowds not only of well-wishers but also of gawkers. The CO birds’ comings and goings was the only show in town and along the pearly shells.

We dissipated as a centrally operated group in ’86 and dispersed into separate but connected thousand sparkles of lights.

Thus, I felt privileged to have chanced being on the last direct flight of Air Mike to Manila three Wednesday back, and I thought that this valedictory flight would have, at least, included a complimentary drink, or something symbolic, from the company to the passengers, particularly those who will be “disenfranchised” by the discontinuance of the route.

Alas, the only fanfare was at Saipan’s Francisco C. Ada International Airport where MCV’s newscaster and the camera person were on hand to digitize the remarks of a few of the passengers on the closing out flight for aircast on the following day’s nightly news.

On board the retiring flight, I dropped a few hints about a possible Captain’s complimentary drink to no avail. I could not even finagle a full can of Bloody Mary mix from the stewards, let alone a jigger of vodka!

So I soldiered on and went about my business preparing the agenda of why I was on the flight to begin with—the almost two-week tour of the land of my birth. The sojourn went fast and full enough that it merited a few reflections, some of which saw print in the pages of this paper.

It was the return flight that was a dismal experience. I was returning on a milk run through Koror, Yap and Guam before arriving on the land that once hosted the shadows of the Enola Gay and unknowingly birthed the Little Boy that devastated the Nippon city of Hiroshima.

I had never been to Koror and Yap so I was looking forward to setting sights on these island outcroppings this side of the Pacific Ocean. To my disappointment, we were not even allowed to set foot on Belau’s famed greeneries. What used to be just ordinary pillow puffing and general housekeeping on the plane has become a homeland security routine where transit passengers take their belongings and move to one side of the plane while airline or airport ground personnel secure one side of the plane to make sure no incendiary devices were left behind by deplaning passengers. (Presumably, suicidal passengers who might detonate their body and soul to the glory of Allah do not frequent this route.) The process is repeated on the other side of the plane.

Transit time is 45 minutes, sufficient enough to be able to get off and on board again while security measures are applied on board the plane. In fact, this was what happened to the next stop in Yap. Half of the passengers, occupants of seats A, B, and C, to be exact, were instructed to deplane with their belongings so that housekeeping/security folks can come on board and replay the routine in Koror.

Those of us on seats A, B, and C, who were told to deplane were herded to the departure lounge at the airport, where the local departing passengers are already waiting out their call to board on a standing-room only accommodation. The Visitors’ Bureau of both stops might consider getting passengers off quickly to an airport curio shop to occupy transit passengers and whet the travelers’ appetite to turn tourists the next time.

In Yap, like any other location these days, everyone seems to be economizing on the cost of fuel by limiting the use of air-conditioning. In fact, the departure waiting lounge had the aircon turned off, and the doors shut. Now, we are in a tropical island with swaying palm trees and ever circulating winds but someone chose to inflict the wonders of stale air upon more than six-dozen passengers, half of whom were teenagers from Japan on an exchange program. Thank God for the vaunted Nippon school discipline. Were these students from the CNMI PSS, I might actually appreciate GWB’s homeland security cops! Coming down to the departure lounge proved to be less of an improvement over waiting on hold on board the plane while housekeeping did their chores.

Besides, when the waiting passengers were finally asked to board, the transit passengers with their carryon luggage were not the first to be called as I expected from previous experience in similar situations elsewhere. Instead, the First/Business class folks were asked to go first, and noticing the mwar-wearing officious-looking departees, I guess, we had some departing heavyweights in the crowd.

Such transit time is not uncommon. For 15 minutes more, transiting passengers in Nagoya usually have that much time to clear security again, and change planes, or board the same one at another gate. Usually, there’s even time to grab a Bloody Mary and a plate of sushi from the JAL VIP lounge.

Some seven hours later, after leaving Manila after 11am, we finally made Guam. There was a five-hour wait for the next flight to Saipan so I readied my laptop and was set to lounge at the food court near the Duty Free shops at the Won Pat International Airport. It was not to be. GWB’s homeland security forces staffed the connecting door from Immigration to the airport’s waiting lounge. We had arrived and cleared immigration too late. The troops closed shop at 9pm and were not to return until half an hour after midnight.

OK, I said to the CO ground personnel. There was a five-hour wait and what would you recommend we do, I asked along with a few connecting passengers who had more hours to wait than I. Up to you, came the reply. You can leave the building or find a corner and rest. I was dumbfounded. I was tempted to ask: Have you ever heard of customer service, but I was afraid to hear what I heard elsewhere before: Oh, that’s another department, sir!

Well, you guessed it. It was nighttime and the sun was down so someone decided to economize on the aircon. We were back to stale air. Nothing within walking distance is close to the airport and if you had been waiting at three airports since the morning, one is not inclined to be adventurous in unknown territory in the middle of the night when all one wanted was a cup of coffee, some cool circulating air, and some peace and quiet.

Continental Airlines as Air Micronesia is celebrating its 40th year as the hometown airline of Micronesia. This is not to denounce the whole airline. A recent press release listed a few awards garnered by the company this year in providing service to its clientele, and I do not doubt that those awards were well deserved. But on CO 892 from Manila to Guam and on to Saipan, this passenger did not experience being cared for one iota, and of what Continental Airlines has wrought on Saipan of late, to this passenger, CO is the hometown airline of Micronesia no more!