Rep. Joseph \u201cLee Pan\u201d Guerrero (R-Saipan) is seeking an audience with top executive of Cebu Pacific Air on the possibility of the low-cost Philippine carrier serving the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
Guerrero said he has sent an official letter to Lance Y. Gokongwei, CEO and president of Cebu Pacific, and has gotten an acknowledgment from the office of the executive.<\/p>\n
In his letter, Guerrero said that travel to Manila is \u201cvery inconvenient\u201d for the traveling public because \u201cthey have to fly from Saipan to Guam on a small 40-seater airplane then wait [in] Guam for several hours for connecting flights to the Philippines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guerrero cited that \u201cflight delays and cancellations are common occurrences causing sufferings to patients, many of whom are on a wheelchair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manila is one of the preferred destinations for patients seeking treatment for cases that cannot be treated in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
There are other flight options, either through Incheon in Korea or in Narita in Japan, but both routes also have \u201cwaiting time of 6 to 8 hours and with similar airfares,\u201d the lawmaker said.<\/p>\n
Guerrero said he is not seeking services on a daily basis \u201cbut at least 2 to 3 times a week to help our patients seeking medical treatment in your country.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the long term, Guerrero said, he would also like to invite Cebu Pacific \u201cto consider flying your Japan flights to Osaka-Nagoya-Saipan-Manila.\u201d<\/p>\n
He cited that the CNMI \u201clost air connection in our Osaka and Nagoya gateways\u201d that resulted in businesses losses for the tourism industry.<\/p>\n
PAL flights <\/strong> The new service is being eyed through its subsidiary, PAL Express network.<\/p>\n PAL is reportedly eyeing to offer two weekly flights to the Commonwealth. The carrier used to service the Manila-Saipan route in the early 1990s. (Joel Pinaroc)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rep. Joseph \u201cLee Pan\u201d Guerrero (R-Saipan) is seeking an audience with top executive of Cebu…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20,6343,170,4993],"class_list":["post-207073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-budget","tag-cebu-pacific-air","tag-japan","tag-lee-pan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207073","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\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nLast month, flag-carrier Philippine Airlines disclosed that it is looking at reviving its Manila-Saipan route by operating a new direct service between the Philippine capital and the CNMI capital starting December.<\/p>\n