With the extension of Air Busan\u2019s charter flights to Saipan to March 27, the South Korean airline has reportedly expressed an interest in maintaining a regular Busan-Saipan route, as well as accommodating additional flights from Incheon to Saipan.<\/p>\n
According to Gloria Cavanagh, Mariana E-Land vice president, the charter that was organized by E-Land\u2019s subsidiary, Micronesia Resort Inc., may not have had the outcome they had hoped for, but it was successful in other ways.<\/p>\n
The charter flights were supposed to last only from Jan. 23 to Feb. 27, but Cavanagh explained that through the charter, MRI was able to entice Air Busan to continue servicing the Saipan route. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had hoped for a better turnout. Because it was a weekly flight only, it was cost-challenging for the consumer.\u00a0However, we believe it was successful in other ways. By doing this charter, we were able to convince Air Busan not to give up their already approved route to Saipan,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The E-Land vice president said Air Busan has expressed an interest in flying the Saipan route twice a week, even possibly adding two Incheon flights to its regular schedule. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe also\u00a0believe that this\u00a0led\u00a0Air Busan to express their interest in continued service to Saipan in a twice weekly flight pattern from Busan.\u00a0They have also expressed interest in adding two flights from Incheon.\u00a0This can possibly mean four weekly Air Busan\u00a0flights for\u00a0Saipan,\u201d Cavanagh said. <\/p>\n
Cavanagh said this opens an opportunity for the CNMI to be exposed to residents of Busan\u2014exposure the CNMI hasn\u2019t had in years. <\/p>\n
\u201cAir Busan had also\u00a0put out much money and effort to promote the Marianas. They promoted the Marianas on their social network services, website, as well as offline on billboards and\u00a0radio ads.\u00a0 We have not had a flight from the Busan area in a couple of years. We hope for ourselves, as well as the whole of the CNMI economy, that there will be an expansion of interest in this area,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
On behalf of E-Land, Cavanagh said she thanks the Marianas Visitors Authority and the Tourism Resumption Investment Program for their help in getting new airlines to partner with the CNMI. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to thank MVA and the Korea TRIP program for the support.\u00a0In this COVID environment, it is nearly impossible to add new airlines to serve our destination. We hope that this will lead to a long and successful partnership,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Air Busan is a budget carrier unit of Asiana Airlines Inc. that started providing air service to Saipan at the end of January via six scheduled charter flights. <\/p>\n
Currently, Air Busan only offers flights on two international routes: from the southern port city of Busan to Qingdao in China, and from Busan to Saipan.<\/p>\n
It was learned that the airline previously provided a Busan-Guam flight but dropped Guam after establishing a charter with Saipan pursuant to the travel bubble arrangement the CNMI has with South Korea. <\/p>\n
Right now, Air Busan flies to Saipan every Sunday until March 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the extension of Air Busan\u2019s charter flights to Saipan to March 27, the South…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":363310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363302","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=363302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}