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Continental eyes China market
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Posted on May 18 2008
Plans are underway for Continental Micronesia to bring flights from China to the region.
Wally Dias, the airline’s staff vice president for sales and marketing, said Continental had begun laying the groundwork for future flights between China and the Marianas.
“China will be a huge travel market in the future. And Continental Micronesia wants to be a player in that market,” said Dias.
He reported that the carrier had succeeded in getting Guam and the Northern Marianas excluded from the frequency cap provision in the U.S.-China aviation treaty signed last year. Under the treaty, Continental Micronesia can operate an unlimited number of flights from any three Chinese cities, except Beijing and Shanghai.
Dias said the airline company is now reviewing where the best opportunities would be.
“There are fantastic opportunities. If you look at cities in China, at the very minimum, there are 100 cities right now that have over a million people. To put that in context, in the United States, there are only nine cities with over a million people.
“Of course, a lot of the cities may not have the large economy to be able to support flights. Maybe the people do not make enough income to afford a vacation to Micronesia. But some of those cities outside of Beijing and Shanghai, I think, do. That’s what we’re going to concentrate on looking at over the next couple of years,” he said.
He added that efforts are also being made to market Micronesian destinations to business travelers who use existing Continental flights between New York and Beijing.
Continental Micronesia marked its 40th anniversary on Friday, May 16, 2008. A simple ceremony was held at the Saipan International Airport to commemorate the inaugural flight of Air Mike, as the airline was called then, from Saipan’s Kobler Field to Honolulu on a Boeing 727-100 jet known as Ju Ju.
Airline official Wally Dias said that plans are underway to bring Continental flights from China to Micronesia.
Currently, the airline offers regular nonstop service to Saipan from Guam and Manila, and charter flights from Japan to Rota.
