{"id":412949,"date":"2024-08-07T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=412949"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"CPA-eyes-2-airlines-for-inter-island-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/CPA-eyes-2-airlines-for-inter-island-service\/","title":{"rendered":"CPA eyes 2 airlines for inter-island service"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Ports Authority has identified two possible inter-island air service providers in the wake of CPA\u2019s current dispute with Star Marianas Air, Inc. who has announced possible suspension of flights come October should their issues not be resolved.<\/p>\n

During a special board meeting last week, CPA board members moved for CPA to look for alternative airlines to provide inter-island air service for the CNMI pursuant to \u201cthreats\u201d made by Star Marianas to terminate air service should their issues with CPA remain unresolved.<\/p>\n

Star Marianas\u2019 notice of intent to terminate air service come October stems from a letter received from CPA demanding debt payment of over $1.2 million. Star Marianas, for its part, feels CPA\u2019s methodology of collecting fees from Star is not correct pursuant to a previous Airport Use Agreement with CPA.<\/p>\n

CPA board chair Joe Ayuyu shared that he has already identified possible inter-island air service providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been a couple of individuals and companies that have approached me. We\u2019re in discussions and we\u2019re urging them to please look at the CNMI as a place for them to do business. We will do everything we can legally to assist them in the permitting process. That\u2019s where we are right now. They haven\u2019t really committed to coming in yet but I think they\u2019re doing their homework as well in terms of securing planes and we do have potential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When asked to name them, Ayuyu said he was not at liberty, as of press time, to disclose their names but says they are in open conversation with CPA at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, I\u2019m not at liberty to disclose the names of these companies as we\u2019re still in the preliminary stages of our conversations. We\u2019re looking at two but I\u2019m trying to reach out to more\u2014possibly from Alaska or Hawaii and other places. The ones we\u2019ve talked to are around Micronesia. There is an airline in Pohnpei that has been serving Kosrae for many years, we\u2019ve reached out to them if they\u2019re interested in expanding. There\u2019s another group that we\u2019re trying to look for seed money for. We\u2019re looking at different possibilities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Ayuyu said he is willing and ready to provide interested airlines help, if need be, just to get them to provide this essential air service between the CNMI islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully these people act quick. They have asked for subsidy but we don\u2019t have the money to subsidize their operations. But I have recommended programs where they can possibly get that funding. There\u2019s a lot of funding sources, it\u2019s just a matter of whether they qualify. As far as the airline out here, we can assist the potential airlines on our end by helping them justify why we need this service right away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Board members Steve Mesngon, who raised the request, said it\u2019s imperative that the CNMI identifies another inter-island air service provider.<\/p>\n

\u201cStar Marianas has a monopoly and because they don\u2019t have anyone to compete with them, here they are threatening our local citizens by terminating their services. They\u2019re doing this because there is no competition and who is suffering, our people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Commonwealth Ports Authority board chair Joe Ayuyu during the CPA special board meeting last week.<\/p>\n

-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES
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The Commonwealth Ports Authority has identified two possible inter-island air service providers in the wake…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412949","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}