THE CNMI is in desperate need of federal funds for air service for its communities, Commonwealth Ports Authority Board Chairwoman Kimberlyn King-Hinds told U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
In her letter to Buttigieg on Wednesday, King-Hinds said that currently, the communities on Rota and Tinian don’t have air service.
Amid an ongoing dispute over airport fees and charges, Star Marianas Air Inc. has suspended its flights from Saipan to Rota and Tinian “due to the risks presented by an unhealthy flight environment.” The airline president, Shaun Christian, told CPA it will resume the flights “when the CNMI creates conditions that allow such services to be performed.”
King-Hinds told Buttigieg, “I am writing because the CNMI needs your help. Our community has struggled with obtaining affordable and reliable means of air travel between our most populated islands. With the suspension of air service from our only inter-island passenger air carrier, the people of the Commonwealth face a struggle unlike most within the United States: our people cannot easily travel — even within our territory. This is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed immediately, especially in light of our current on-the-ground situation.”
King-Hinds is asking the federal official to designate CNMI as a small community so it can be eligible for federal subsidy available through U.S. DOT’s various programs such as the Essential Air Service Program, the Alternative Essential Air Service Program, and the Small Community Air Service Development Program.
She said any resources U.S. DOT could provide “to help our communities participate in these programs is deeply appreciated.”
The CPA chair said even if the current sole air carrier were to resume services, “we risk future air services being suspended, or disrupted should another dispute arise.”
Struggling
“Without air service, the health, safety, and well-being of our people and the struggling economies of these communities are significantly threatened,” King-Hinds said.
“This is apparent based on the simple fact that without air service individuals living on Tinian and Rota will not have access to adequate medical care,” she said. She informed Buttigieg that there are no hospitals on Tinian and Rota. The islands’ residents have to travel to Saipan to give birth, get hemodialysis, chemotherapy, and any other type of critical health care that is not available on Tinian and Rota, she said.
Also, elective health maintenance and care services like seeing an optometrist, dentist, or to simply get a mammogram are also not available on Tinian and Rota.
Some of these critical services are also difficult to get on the island of Saipan, so many of CNMI residents have to travel to Guam or the states to receive urgent critical care like chemotherapy and radiation.
The impact of not having air service, King-Hinds said, is not limited to just access to health care. The impact is very real to law enforcement in Rota and Tinian where there are no jails. Arrestees have to be transported to Saipan to be given their procedural due process. Right now, she said arrestees currently, are being released back into the community because of transportation issues. “This poses a great danger to those communities, especially for victims of domestic abuse,” she said.
No air service
Residents of Rota and Tinian are stuck on their respective islands due to lack of any scheduled passenger air service.
Sen. Frank Cruz, the chairman of Senate Committee on Executive Appointments and Government Investigations and one of the three senators from Tinian, said he is unable to act on many appointments on his desk in the Legislature right now because he could not go to Saipan. He said he had just arrived on Tinian when SMA suspended its flights. Tinian Sen. Karl King-Nabors and Tinian Rep. Patrick San Nicolas are also on Tinian. Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider is the only Tinian Legislative Delegation member who is on Saipan.
“I’m looking forward to the mediation between CPA and SMA to resolve their issues,” Cruz said.
Sen. Paul A. Manglona said he and the other members of the Rota Legislative Delegation have been asking SMA to provide flights to Rota. He said they are now counting on the ongoing communications between CPA and SMA.
In March, the Senate, through its Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications Committee, tried to mediate but failed to help resolve the matter. SMA filed a lawsuit in Superior Court, and a complaint with U.S. DOT which later dismissed it.
Charter flights
King-Hinds told Buttigieg that the people of Rota and Tinian are only able to leave island by chartering a private vessel or flight as there are no roads or bridges that connect the islands “to the outside world.”
She said chartering a private vessel or flight to leave island is not only unreliable but also “prohibitively expensive for an already disadvantaged community that struggles even without the negative economic effects of Covid-19.”
“Star Marianas Inc. (SMA), which was the only scheduled commuter air carrier providing service to both Rota and Tinian, is no longer providing air service due to a long-standing disagreement with the Commonwealth Ports Authority, which is the government entity responsible for operating and managing the ports,” King-Hinds said.
Conditions
In his latest reply to King-Hinds, Christian said SMA will submit its intention to resume scheduled flights to Tinian and Rota.
Christian said SMA agrees that “belaboring…differences of opinion would not be productive at this time.”
“Instead, in view of the hardship that the temporary suspension of service causes on the inter-island traveling public and your and the governor’s offer to suspend imposition of fees until the dispute can be resolved, SMA will also extend a token of good faith toward the resolution of the current impasse by resuming inter-island flight service and submit its intention to resume scheduled flights to Tinian and Rota on an expedited basis to DOT with the CPA’s concurrence that the resumption of scheduled flight service, on an expedited basis, is needed to relieve the burden on inter-island travel,” Christian said.
This resumption of service will be with the express understanding that:
• Fees and charges under the new methodology will be suspended until agreement is reached between CPA and SMA or September 30, 2022 whichever is sooner.
• During this moratorium period, the parties will meet within 60 days if acceptance of this agreement by the CPA to discuss and resolve the major disputes that have been highlighted by both sides in recent filings with the DOT.
• In attempting to achieve any mutually satisfactory solution by CPA and SMA during their negotiations, the parties will mutually sponsor a request to the Federal Aviation Administration to answer core questions that form the basis of the CPA/SMA dispute including the fees that can be assessed to SMA under a compensatory rate methodology and the conformity of the CNMI regulations under which the compensatory fees are imposed by CPA based on the type of aircraft that SMA utilizes to provide flight services to the public.
“It is hoped that based on these offers of good faith we can resolve the longstanding disputes and achieve a more harmonious working relationship, in order that we may both devote our full attention to serving the best interests of the CNMI traveling public,” Christian told the CPA chair.
Hopeful
King-Hinds said if the CNMI is included in the Essential Air Service or EAS program, the Commonwealth will be able to establish affordable and reliable inter-island air travel through subsidizing commuter and certificated air carriers that serve the Rota and Tinian airports.
She specifically asked that U.S. DOT subsidize either multiple round trips a day with 30-seat to 50-seat aircraft or additional frequencies with aircraft with nine-seats or fewer, to connect the Rota and Tinian airports to the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport.
She said the Rota and Tinian airports are both public primary commercial service non-hub airports while the Saipan international airport is a public primary commercial service small-hub airport.
To her knowledge, she said the CNMI has never been designated as an eligible EAS community, and therefore, it has had an average subsidy per passenger of less than $1,000 during the most recent fiscal year.
King-Hinds said each CNMI airport has separately maintained an average of 10 enplanements or more per service day and is more than 175 driving miles from the nearest large- or medium-hub airport.
“In fact, none CNMI airports are within driving distance of any other airport,” she added.
Because the local airports are not within 40 miles from the nearest non-CNMI small-hub airport and are also isolated by water, she also asked that U.S. DOT waive the Commonwealth’s local cost share entirely.
“Extending EAS-eligibility to the CNMI is of critical importance. The CNMI is in desperate need of federal funds to establish scheduled air service for its communities that currently have none. Even if the current sole air carrier were to resume services, we risk future air services being suspended, or disrupted should another dispute arise,” the CPA chair said.
“I am sure that with your experience as mayor, I don’t have to explain in detail what suspension of access does to these struggling and fragile community economies that heavily rely on leisure and business-related travel. The economic and human toll is far too real when you’re a struggling boutique hotelier with overhead costs that you cannot pay for because the economic pipeline has been shut off,” she told the DOT secretary.
In the event that the airports happen to not meet the 10-enplanement requirement, King-Hinds asked Buttigieg that the requirement be waived as Covid-19 has had an extreme impact on traffic at all CNMI airports.
To compound these issues, she said the CNMI has “one of the highest rates of poverty throughout the entire nation.” The cost of travel between the islands is cost prohibitive with the current carrier, she reiterated. “I fear that without federal assistance, these issues will recur regardless of who the carrier is,” she said.
The Saipan airport
