Micronesia Publishing Co. managing director Carlos Santos, who heads the task force to explore the possibility of launching the Fly Marianas brand to other Asian destinations, said “Fly Guam is flexible in catering to the market demands.”
“We are new in the area but we will look into the possibility of opening direct flights from here to more destinations if it is a profitable venture,” said Santos, who was yesterday’s guest during the Saipan Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Hyatt’s SandCastle.
He said in the next few weeks, a team from Fly Guam will be heading out to Japan to talk with various stakeholders on the possibility of adding more destinations for the airlines.
Fly Guam, which launched its inaugural flight last March, flies from Guam to Hong Kong via Saipan thrice a week.
“We only fly one 737 jet with a 144 passenger capacity for now, with 12 seats for the business class and 134 seats for the economy class, but by the middle of next month, we will add our second plane — a 93-seat 737-500 to our fleet to fly the Guam-Palau-Philippines route,” Santos said.
By the end of July or early in August, he said they will be adding a third plane which will fly the Guam-China route.
“As we add more planes to our fleet, we will be increasing the frequency of our flights to cater to more passengers,” Santos said.
Fly Guam is looking at flying six planes and adding more destinations in the next three years.
Santos said with less than two months since they started operations, Fly Guam’s load factor is still “very low” but he is confident this will pick up as soon as they iron out some issues like the airline’s reservation system.
In-flight magazine
Santos said the second issue of Hafa Adai, the in-flight magazine of Fly Guam, will have more translations in other languages, including Chinese.
He said the second issue will be coming out in a couple of weeks.
“For the next issue, Hafa Adai will be focusing more on Saipan and the CNMI and its attractions, with articles and photographs contributed by local writers and photographers,” Santos said.
He said they will be adding translations in Korean, Russian, a section for Chamorro, and Chinese.
Santos said the magazine’s first issue, which focused mainly on Guam, had a Japanese translation as a big bulk of Guam’s tourists come from Japan each year.
The maiden issue came out with an initial 5,000 copies but Santos said they are looking at producing 10,000 copies for circulation to all the airline’s destinations which include Guam, Saipan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
The magazine promotes the CNMI and Guam to other destinations, particularly the Chinese market, Santos said.
Check out the promotional rates Fly Guam offers for flights to Guam and Hong Kong at http://flyguam.com, email [email protected], or call 288-2FLY (2359).
