CNMI lost 572 Continental flights in eight months

Apparently justifying concerns raised by the Commonwealth Ports Authority before the United States Department of Transportation, Continental Micronesia has downsized its air transport services to the Northern Marianas by 572 flights in the first eight months of Fiscal Year 2000.

The Houston-based carrier’s decision to drop all nonstop flights to the Northern Marianas resulted to a dramatic 19 percent decline in international aircraft traffic between Saipan and major cities in several Asian countries.

Government statistics disclosed Continental Micronesia reduced its services to Saipan by 64 percent between 1997 and 1999, bringing only 74,000 passengers into the CNMI last year.

In 1997, Continental Micronesia had more than 700 direct Japan-Saipan flights each year. The carrier does not currently have even a single direct flight between Saipan and Japan.

The ports authority reported a declining trend in the volume of passengers arriving on Saipan on board Continental Micronesia beginning 1996. The carrier’s passenger haul dropped by 23 percent from 166,000 to 127,000 during the period covering calendar years 1996 and 1997.

In 1998, the volume of passengers brought in by the carrier to Saipan is lower by 23 percent compared with the previous year’s level, from 127,000 to 98,000. The figure dipped further by 25 percent last year, totaling only 74,000 passengers by end-December 1999.

CPA Executive Director Carlos H. Salas said Continental Micronesia downsized its air transport services to the Northern Marianas by seven percent during the period covering 1996 and 1997.

The following year, the airline company reduced its direct flights to Saipan by a whooping 43 percent, then again in 1999 when Continental slashed services to the island by a painful 37 percent.

According to a report obtained from CPA, aircraft landings at the Saipan International Airport dropped to 2,116 during the period covering October 1999 and May 2000.

During the same period in FY-1999, international landings totaled 2,619, representing a decline of 503 flights from the FY-2000 level.

However. arrivals at the Saipan International Airport between October 1999 and May 2000 jumped 18 percent to 313,486 passengers from 265,295 passengers during the same period last fiscal year.

The report submitted before members of the CPA Board of Directors also disclosed the number of passengers departing at the island’s lone international air transport facility soared six percent from 325,318 to 344,841 passengers during the period under review.

Its consistent deployment of regular flights to the islands gave Japan Airlines a commanding control of the air transport market, cornering 39 percent of all passengers traveling to the Northern Marianas.

Former market leader Continental Micronesia, which dropped all nonstop international flights to the CNMI last year, grabbed 25 percent of the total market share; Northwest Airlines controlled 22 percent; and Asiana Airlines held 14 percent of passengers.

For the month of May 2000 alone, aircraft landings at the Saipan International Airport dropped eight percent to 270 from 294 last year.

But CPA reported a significant increase in passenger traffic with deplanement or arrival figures jumping by 22 percent from 34,568 to 42,066; and departure statistics climbing two percent to 42,921 from 42,286 in May last year.