Following the pullout of Japan Airlines\u2019 regular flight to Saipan, a new company that may become the CNMI\u2019s flag carrier plans to introduce flights services between Saipan and Asian markets such as Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n
Air Saipan Ltd. also plans to tap other markets, including Australia and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
Newly installed Commonwealth Ports Authority executive director Lee Cabrera made the disclosure yesterday, confirming reports that a new carrier may soon pick up the number of travelers coming to the islands.<\/p>\n
Cabrera confirmed that Air Saipan chair and founder Dean Mills has been communicating with the CPA about flight services to Saipan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re prepared to receive details of their flight plans,\u201d the CPA executive director said. Cabrera refused to divulge other details as of press time.<\/p>\n
The Saipan Tribune attempted but couldn\u2019t reach Mills\u2019 Guam offices by telephone yesterday.<\/p>\n
The possibility of having a new air carrier serving Saipan and its tourist markets came about amid declining visitor arrivals to the CNMI following JAL\u2019s pullout of regular flights to the CNMI in October 2005.<\/p>\n
In November, the significant drop in Japanese arrivals to the CNMI resulted in an overall decline in the Commonwealth\u2019s tourism industry.<\/p>\n
With only 21,893 Japanese visiting the islands in November, total tourist arrivals for the month reached only 35,267, declining by 19.65 percent\u2014or 8,623 tourists\u2014from November 2004\u2019s 43,890. Japanese tourists, the CNMI\u2019s top market, totaled 30,454 in November 2004 and dived by 28 percent this year.<\/p>\n
Local tourism industry players have expressed concern that JAL\u2019s pullout would result in a loss of nearly a third of the CNMI\u2019s Japanese market, which is equivalent to over a hundred thousand Japanese tourists yearly, even as Northwest Airlines added one flight daily from Osaka, Japan. Northwest now provides 21 flights weekly from Japan\u2014one flight daily each from Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya.<\/p>\n
Asiana Airlines also disclosed recently that it has begun bringing in tourists from four other Japanese cities\u2014Sendai, Fukushima, Toyama, and Kumamoto\u2014since early December. Japanese visitors come to Saipan via Asiana flights to Seoul.<\/p>\n
\u201cTravelers from those Japanese cities had to transfer to Osaka or Narita [Tokyo] to come to the CNMI [via the terminated JAL flights],\u201d said Asiana\u2019s general manager for Saipan, Kwang Joong Kim. \u201cThey can come here via Inchon airport at lower fares. They can enjoy shopping in Korea and traveling to the CNMI. They can enjoy both destinations.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Kim said Asiana\u2019s target visitors from Japan in 2006 is only about 3,000, but added that the company wants to take part in filling in the number of tourists lost due JAL\u2019s pullout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Following the pullout of Japan Airlines\u2019 regular flight to Saipan, a new company that may become the CNMI\u2019s flag carrier plans to introduce flights services between Saipan and Asian markets such as Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96660","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\/96660","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=96660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}