The first Saipan-based Korean airline to provide daily charter flights to and from Japan will launch their inaugural flight on Aug. 1, 2018. <\/p>\n
The pullout of Delta Airlines early this year resulted in a steady outflow of Japanese tourists that left the CNMI in dire need of a Japan flight.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, while there is no direct flight to Japan in place yet, Korean airlines are stepping up to service the Japan market until a direct Japan flight is confirmed. <\/p>\n
During an interview with Jin Air regional manager Hong Gyu Hur, he confirmed that this would be the first time a Korean airline has agreed to provide air service to a Japan market. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is for the first time especially for a Korean airline. All Korean airlines have no experience in chartering flights from Japan\u2026this is the first to try from our side,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Hur said that the first charter flight will launch on Aug. 1 and will continue on for 25 days on a daily scheduled route. <\/p>\n
The aircraft that will service the Japan-Saipan flight will be a Boeing 737-800 that will be able to hold up to 189 passengers, excluding the crew. <\/p>\n
According to Hur, Jin Air partnered with a tourism agency in Japan in order to send people to Saipan on these chartered flights. <\/p>\n
When asked what inspired Jin Air to take the plunge and become the first Korean airline to charter a Japan route, Hur said that Jin Air just wanted to continue bringing in Japanese tourists to the CNMI despite the lack of a direct flight. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the good moment to try this outright\u2026and we should continue to promote Saipan to tourists,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The Jin Air charter flight is scheduled to arrive on Saipan at 3pm every day and depart at 4:20pm every day. <\/p>\n
According to a previous interview with Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Chris Concepcion, Asiana Airlines and Jeju Air will also provide Japan chartered flights as early as this Friday, July 13.<\/p>\n
\u201cJin Air will launch 23 summer charters beginning Aug. 1 from Tokyo-Narita to Saipan. Asiana Airlines will also operate five charters from Tokyo-Narita to Saipan in August. Jeju will operate a flight from Nagoya to Saipan on July 13,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Concepcion said, in behalf of MVA, they are pleased with the success they have achieved in the mission to secure a direct flight to and from Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe MVA has been working tirelessly to bring additional flights from Japan so we are pleased with the success we\u2019ve had thus far. Japan remains a pillar of our tourism industry even with limited flight options and we remain optimistic about the future of this key source market with the upcoming entry of a new airline soon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Concepcion said that the remainder of this fiscal year would see further drops in arrivals from Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs expected with limited flights so we seek community support to ensure our visitors are given the best experience when vacationing in the CNMI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first Saipan-based Korean airline to provide daily charter flights to and from Japan will…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[1682,26,170,6558],"class_list":["post-279988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-asiana-airlines","tag-cnmi","tag-japan","tag-jin-air"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279988","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}