Asiana flight cut to cost NMI $55M

Asiana Airlines’ decision to reduce its flights to the CNMI to only once a day is projected to hamstring the CNMI tourism industry, with Marianas Visitors Authority executive director Perry Tenorio saying it will likely cost the local economy $55 million.

Yonhap News earlier reported that Asiana will be reducing flights to the CNMI to address a plane shortfall caused by the recent incident to its Hiroshima route.

“We’re in contact with Asiana and, unfortunately, they are utilizing the plane for other services. For now, we’re talking to our Korea office and hopefully they will reinstate the service sooner than later,” Tenorio said.

For the balance of the fiscal year, Tenorio said the Korea market will be looking at a reduction of 31,250 seats to the CNMI beginning May 28 to the end of September. This is a decrease of 26,724 persons.

MVA’s projected revenue for the tourism industry was $1.22 billion as of March 2015. With the loss of $55 million, this will go down to $1.17 billion, a 4.6-percent reduction.

Korea to remain strong

Tenorio assured, though, that MVA still projects the Korean market to remain as the largest source country this fiscal year and they project visitor arrivals to rise 7 percent from last fiscal year.

Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands reported earlier that this calendar year, hotel occupancy is at an average 87.78 percent, about 1 percent higher than last year. However, average room rates have increased by 8 percent compared to the same period last fiscal year.

Korea’s arrivals as of March 2015 soared by 40 percent to 14,989 visitors.

Newer flights, reduction

In a separate interview yesterday, Sung Nam Park, regional manager for Asiana Airlines Saipan Regional Office, confirmed the reduced number of flights starting May 28, with only night flights arriving on Saipan.

“We are now operating two flights and on May 28 it will be one. The decision was done by corporate and an internal decision was made. Once better marketing decision is done, it will be back to normal,” Park said.

Two flights arrive from Korea each day, one at night and the other during the day. The Airbus 330 aircraft provides 290 seats, according to Park.

“Soon as our marketing operation is okay and our configuration we will have our Boeing 747 operation four times a week. This will be for our night flights in June 13 operating,” Park said.

Despite the reduction, a Boeing 747 aircraft will have flights four times a week at night.

“We don’t know exactly as to when will we double the flights again but as soon as we have a little better knowledge on the situation, we will be ready to come back again,” he said.

Park assured that Asiana would still provide the same volume of the demand.

“We have been flying here more than 10 years as a premium airline to this island and we will never forget to serve the CNMI. We are always looking for opportunity to provide better service and safety under Asiana and appreciate the people’s support to our airlines,” he said.

Other reasons

In a separate interview, Rep. Joseph Lee Pan Guerrero (R-Saipan), chairman of the House Committee on Commerce and Tourism, said he knows the issue why Asiana is pulling one flight out in the CNMI.

“They needed one aircraft for Hiroshima and apparently the marketing here is not as ‘solid’ as other areas and they needed the aircraft. The easy way out is pull one flight out of here to accommodate until such time they clear the suspension,” Guerrero said.

“I hope though that they can pull through and come back again,” he added.

Saipan Tribune learned that Asiana resumed its Hiroshima flights last April 30.