The Commonwealth Ports Authority is moving closer to submitting a formal petition with the U.S. Department of Transportation for air service expansion in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
CPA consultant Carlos H. Salas said the agency, through a consulting firm in Washington D.C., is now on a second draft of the petition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll finish it this week or early next week. It\u2019s a lot of fine tuning, gathering of data to make sure it\u2019s complete, with relevant statistics, relevant justification,\u201d said Salas.<\/p>\n
He said CPA would distribute a copy of the second draft to stakeholders, including the Governor\u2019s Office and the Marianas Visitors Authority, for more input.<\/p>\n
It will take another round of review and fine-tuning before a final petition is submitted to the federal department.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure that our petition is well-thought of, well supported so we can have a favorable consideration from DoT,\u201d said Salas.<\/p>\n
He said CPA also aims to get the support of U.S. airlines, particularly Continental Airlines and Northwest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make it palatable to air carriers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Both airlines have reportedly opposed a similar petition filed by the Guam government with the Transportation Department. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no guarantee they [airlines] will support it [CNMI\u2019s petition], but we are working hard. We are hoping they will support us,\u201d said Salas.<\/p>\n
The CNMI\u2019s open-sky request, if granted, will result in the entry of foreign airlines to service the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
The proposed waiver would allow foreign carriers to have the flexibility to fly to the CNMI and an additional U.S. destination.<\/p>\n
Right now, foreign carriers such as Asiana are restricted from flying to Saipan and another U.S. destination like Guam at the same time.<\/p>\n
Salas said the CNMI is a unique U.S. jurisdiction whose main economic engine\u2014tourism\u2014depends largely on air travel.<\/p>\n
The CNMI\u2019s tourism industry, still reeling from the effects of a series of international events\u2014the Asian economic crisis in the late \u201990s, 2001 terrorist attacks, and SARS scare\u2014was further hit recently with the pullout of Japan Airlines.<\/p>\n
Japan Airlines used to provide daily flights from Japan, the CNMI\u2019s number one tourism market.<\/p>\n
CPA currently retains the services of Washington D.C.-based aviation law firm, Hogan & Hartson, to finalize the open-sky petition with the federal department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Ports Authority is moving closer to submitting a formal petition with the U.S. Department of Transportation for air service expansion in the CNMI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}