Star Marianas, the sole airline that provides interisland commute among the islands of the CNMI, continues to argue that the Passenger Facility Charge imposed by the Commonwealth Ports Authority should be waived for them. <\/p>\n
In an interview with CPA board chair Kimberlyn King-Hinds, she said this is on top of the millions of dollars Star Marianas owes in fees. She said Star Marianas argues that PFCs should be waived for its to lessen the burden of interisland commuters.<\/p>\n
\u201cStar Marianas, for a long time, has been arguing that Tinian and Rota should be waived as far as the collection of those PFCs [is concerned] to basically lessen the burden of interisland commute. Which I don\u2019t disagree with,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Essentially, PFC is a tax that the Federal Aviation Administration authorizes CPA to impose on all airlines doing business in the CNMI in order to fund improvements to the Francisco C. Ada\/Saipan International Airport, Tinian International Airport, and Rota International Airport. <\/p>\n
The board chair explained CPA also makes improvements to its terminals through AIP, or Airport Improvement Program, funds from the FAA. However, these grants do not cover 100% of the cost and, like other federal grants, there is a local match.<\/p>\n
Although she does not disagree with the argument, King-Hinds said it would be unfair to other airlines if the tax is waived specifically for Star Marianas. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t just think of Tinian and Rota. I have a duty and obligation to the entire Commonwealth and when you only tax a certain group of people, it\u2019s unfair,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
On top of it being unfair, CPA depends on taxes like PFCs in order to make the necessary improvements on Tinian and Rota since it isn\u2019t subsidized by the CNMI government. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhere am I going to get the money for the improvements that are needed to be made to Tinian and Rota? Everybody basically has to share in this burden. CPA does not get any funding, at all, from the government. We rely on our ability to charge and assess fees to be able to cover for these costs, so that\u2019s why we charge PFCs,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Currently, CPA isn\u2019t imposing PFCs as their authorization to collect these fees have expired. King-Hinds said CPA is still working on the application to
\nget regain authorization from the FAA to impose these fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe issued a notice to all carriers that our authorization to collect those fees has expired and we have submitted a letter to the FAA requesting to reauthorize us to continue charging the $4.50,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Star Marianas, the sole airline that provides interisland commute among the islands of the CNMI,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":348869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[124],"class_list":["post-348866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cpa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348866","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=348866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}