THE U.S. Department of Transportation is “giving full and careful consideration” to the Commonwealth Ports Authority’s request to exempt the CNMI from a federal order limiting the number of direct flights from China.
In August 2023, CPA applied for an exemption from Part 213 of the USDOT’s Order 2020-61 that limits scheduled air service between the U.S. and China. In January 2024, Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero wrote USDOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg a letter supporting CPA’s request.
U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan wrote a similar letter to USDOT in January 2024 and a follow-up letter in March 2024.
CPA is asking the federal government to reinstate Annex VI of the U.S.-China bilateral agreement that exempts the CNMI from flight frequency limitations between the U.S. and China.
In a letter last week, USDOT Assistant Secretary of Aviation and International Affairs Carol A. Petsonk told Deleon Guerrero that CPA’s application for exemption “is currently pending before the department.”
While Petsonk cannot comment on the merit of the application, she assured Deleon Guerrero that “we are giving full and careful consideration to the CPA request.”
As USDOT’s standard practice, Petsonk said she would docket Deleon Guerrero’s letter along with Petsonk’s response.
In her follow-up letter to USDOT in February, Deleon Guerrero stressed that the direct economic impact of losing the Chinese tourism market on the CNMI is approximately $126.4 million based on pre-Covid data.
She said that with no airline providing passenger flight services between mainland China and the Commonwealth, “the imminent collapse of the tourism industry will have repercussions for the future of the CNMI that will last for years.”
Delegate-elect Kimberlyn King-Hinds has vowed to seek the reinstatement of Annex VI saying, “We need to open up all [tourism] markets.”
The local economy has yet to recover from the Covid-19 restrictions that all but shut down the tourism industry in 2020.
