{"id":208116,"date":"2015-08-17T06:06:30","date_gmt":"2015-08-16T20:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=208116"},"modified":"2015-08-17T06:06:30","modified_gmt":"2015-08-16T20:06:30","slug":"goni-strands-nearly-200-at-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/goni-strands-nearly-200-at-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Goni strands nearly 200 at airport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eight flights were diverted to the Francisco C. Ada\/Saipan International Airport on their way to Guam on Saturday due the strong winds and rain from Tropical Storm Goni, according to the Commonwealth Ports Authority.<\/p>\n

As of yesterday afternoon, three of the eight flights remained at the local airport.<\/p>\n

\"Stranded<\/a>
Stranded tourists wait to be processed at the Saipan International Airport. (Dennis B. Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CPA executive director Maryann Lizama said these were United Airlines, Star Alliance, and Jin Air flights.<\/p>\n

The eight diverted flights were headed to Guam.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut because there was zero visibility on Guam they couldn\u2019t land so they were diverted here,\u201d Lizama said.<\/p>\n

Lizama said United Airlines was able to check in passengers at hotels.<\/p>\n

Jin Air 182 passengers were housed in the holding area.<\/p>\n

But concession stands were closed due to the Condition 1 warning from the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to get [drinking] water with help of [Gov. Eloy S. Inos and Lt. Gov. Ralph Torres and Emergency Operations Center].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe allowed the Korean association and community to come in\u2026so they could feed and aid the stranded passengers,\u201d Lizama added.<\/p>\n

According to her, Jin Air landed around 3pm on Saturday. They were set to leave at 5pm yesterday.<\/p>\n

Delta Air Lines regular flights were also cancelled on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Transportation Security Administration was not able to start operations until after 12pm yesterday, when Condition 1 levels were lifted.<\/p>\n

Saipan Tribune saw dozens of passengers waiting around the airport\u2019s check-in area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a departure area full of people that need to be screened,\u201d Lizama said.<\/p>\n

United Airlines informed passengers that they were waiting on TSA. Some passengers with flights that day were waiting as early as 9:30am.<\/p>\n

TSA began screening passengers around 3:30pm yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eight flights were diverted to the Francisco C. Ada\/Saipan International Airport on their way to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":208134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[51,6558,3612,181],"class_list":["post-208116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-guam","tag-jin-air","tag-tsa","tag-united-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208116","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}