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CPA tenants ask to defer lease payments
Board to talk about allowing online meetings
File photo shows the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport. A lot of tenants at the airport have requested the Commonwealth Ports Authority to defer lease payments due to COVID-19’s impact on their operations. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)
Many of the Commonwealth Ports Authority’s airport tenants have asked CPA to allow them to defer payments on their leases due to the shutdown of the Saipan airport’s operation as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
Those requests, together with the possibility of amending the CPA board’s bylaws to allow board meetings via teleconference, will be taken up in an emergency board meeting this Monday.
CPA board chair Kimberlyn King-Hinds said yesterday that chief on the meeting agenda is their tenants’ request for relief on their leases. She disclosed that a lot of their tenants have requested to defer lease payments due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their operations.
The special meeting will be held starting at 6pm between the arrival and departure terminals of the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport.
At the last CPA board meeting, Barrie C. Toves, who chairs the Airport Facilities Committee, recommended to the board to amend their bylaws to allow board members to attend meetings either via teleconference, videocall, or others means.
“Our bylaws as it currently stands requires board members’ physical presence to vote on matters presented to the board for action,” said Toves, who is a resident of Rota.
By amending the bylaws, this would allow him to remain on Rota while participating in board meetings and for his vote to be counted, Toves said, adding that he intends to participate in Monday’s meeting, but will but just to listen as his colleagues vote whether to adopt the amendment or not.
On the matter of tenant leases, he said CPA should consider helping out its tenants considering that CPA is expecting to get $22.75 million under the CARES Act for airports.
“We’re all in this [COVID-19] pandemic together and therefore we should all come together to help each other out,” Toves said.
Starting last April 3, Star Marianas Air temporarily suspended its scheduled flight services between the islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.
Star Marianas Air president Shaun R. Christian said the suspension will take effect until such time that the provision of scheduled services become helpful to serving the communities.
Christian, however, stated that Star Marianas will continue to provide 24-hour emergency flight services for patient transfers and other transportation needs to support control efforts in the fight against the COVID-19 virus.
He said Star Marianas will also continue to provide inter-island air cargo services between the CNMI and Guam.
United Airlines had also suspended all its flights into and out of the CNMI from Guam from April 6 to 30, 2020.
Skymark Airlines Inc.’s last flights between Saipan and Japan were last March 25, closing the CNMI’s door to international flights. The suspension of the flights will be until May 10, 2020.
MD: The Commonwealth Ports Authority board of directors will hold an emergency board meeting this Monday to discuss many CPA tenants’ request to defer payments of their lease due to shutdown of operations as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
