IT’S been a long wait, Senate President Deleon Guerrero said, but she was very excited to see the letter from the U.S. Department of Transportation responding to her request for an exemption of the CNMI from the China flight frequency limitation.
In an interview on Monday, Deleon Guerrero said she no longer expected the federal agency to respond to her letter, which she sent in January. She also sent a follow-up letter in February.
In her letters, she expressed her support for the Commonwealth Ports Authority’s request for the reinstatement of Annex VI of the bilateral transportation agreement between the U.S. and China.
Deleon Guerrero said that on Monday, “right after the election, I opened my email and I found [USDOT’s reply], and I felt good and I’m glad that they are looking at it and considering it because we absolutely need [more] airlines. We need tourists to turn around our economy.”
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,” and she assured that “we are giving full and careful consideration” to CPA’s request.
U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan made the same request to USDOT in January 2024, and wrote a follow-up letter in March.
When she was still the CPA board chair last year, U.S. Delegate-elect Kimberlyn King-Hinds asked USDOT to remove “any hindrance to the return of the China market,” which used to be the CNMI’s second largest tourism market.
King-Hinds said she will continue to seek the reinstatement of Annex VI.
In his letter to USDOT early this year, Kilili said “regaining access to the Chinese tourism market would help our ailing economy recover. However, I believe this could only be possible if the Northern Mariana Islands is exempted by DOT from the limit on the number of scheduled flights from Chinese air carriers to the U.S., as allowed under the provisions of Annex VI.”
