‘Star Marianas can break Cape Air monopoly’

A day after a Cape Air official apologized for the interisland carrier’s cancelled flights the past several months, a number of lawmakers batted for the breaking of the airline’s monopoly on the CNMI-Guam route.

“The best thing for customers is to have competition. Competition drives innovation, drives product quality and services. It removes the environment of a monopoly where the consumers are forced to accept what is available because there’s no other alternative,” said Rep. Tony Sablan (Ind-Saipan).

While he accepts Cape Air’s apology, Sablan lamented the lack of a firm timeline on when air service will return to normal.

“I think that’s expected but that doesn’t address the long-term issue of interisland service between here, Guam, and Rota. While the apology is there, there’s no firm timeline when we could expect the second aircraft to be here [on Saipan],” he said.

Andrew Bonney, Cape Air’s vice president for planning, told Saipan Chamber of Commerce members Wednesday that Cape Air usually maintains two AT42 turboprop aircraft on Saipan, but one unit was sent to the United States for scheduled maintenance.

“Those are one of the things that we should be concerned about. The other thing is the frequency of the cancellations of flights due to mechanical reasons. While we understand and agree that in consideration of safety that’s why we do that, when it comes to air service it’s something that we cannot accept to continue for any duration of time. Obviously, because it affects the economy as people travel back and forth. What’s worse is the flights are cancelled for a number of days and people are stranded and United Airlines picks up the slack and provides service to get people from here to Guam, but they charge unacceptable rates, unaffordable rates, really,” added Sablan.

Rep. Lorenzo Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), House Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications chair, said that having Star Marianas offer an alternative service to the CNMI-Guam route would be a boon to the CNMI’s flying public.

“It would be a great advantage to the CNMI since Cape Air doesn’t know how soon their operations will be back normal.”

He encouraged the Tinian-based carrier to work out its differences with the Guam International Airport Authority so it could inaugurate its Saipan-Guam flight at the soonest possible time.

Sablan seconded Guerrero’s call for Star Marianas to work with GIAA to open a second service between the Mariana Islands.

“I don’t really know what transpired between Star Marianas and the Guam International Airport Authority, but I hope that it’s an issue that can be resolved soon. I hope it’s also not a result of trying to keep out competition. We have anti-trust laws that basically prohibit that. In all fairness to all parties, I hope that both sides work things out and I hope Star Marianas will be able to provide service.”

Rep. Roman Benavente (Ind-Saipan) also welcomed the entry of Star Marianas into the market.

“That’s the thing with Cape Air. They’ve monopolized the transportation, not only monopolized but economically drained the people of the CNMI by raising the price of fares. They’ve ignored us and now they’re trying to come back because the federal government is now giving them a wake-up call. To me it’s better to have two carriers so we can establish competition. Competition is healthy because the prices are going down and quality of service will come up. I think it’s high time that Star Marianas jump in, but I strongly feel that United/Cape Air doesn’t really want Star Marianas to come in and compete,” said Benavente.