By Nestor Licanto
For Variety
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — One of the key presentations at Tuesday’s meeting in Yap of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, or PATA, Micronesia Chapter was by Anthony Falvo, United Airlines senior manager for global network planning and alliances, Pacific route planning.
Falvo and his team decide where United flies in the Pacific region based on various factors, and he said post-pandemic, when push came to shove, they decided to stay with Micronesia.
“Largely because of the weak demand between Japan and Guam, we had to make a decision…. If we operate a smaller base of airplanes out there, or if we could do something creative with the aircraft until demand between Japan and the rest of the region recovered, and we chose the latter,” Falvo told the PATA Micronesia representatives.
He said it was an important decision for the company because keeping the aircraft out in Guam facilitates a faster recovery. “I can’t tell you when demand between Japan and the islands will recover, but I can tell you it will at some point, and we want to be ready when that day comes,” Falvo said.
“So by keeping our aircraft out there, by keeping pilots out there and flight attendants — we’ve actually grown the fleet — we’re in a better position to grow as soon as we see the demand that we need to see,” he added.
Falvo said there is a big competitive advantage to being able to fly out of Narita to Asia, but it’s also seen by the company as a sign of faith and commitment to the Micronesia region.
“United is not going anywhere, and we really want to be the ones to add new flights when the demand does start to materialize,” he said.
The carrier now uses some of the airplanes that it historically flies between Guam and Japan to launch new routes between Tokyo Narita and some alternate Asian destinations.
“We launched Cebu last November, and this year we started flying from Tokyo to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. In just over a week, we will inaugurate service between Tokyo Narita to Palau, something that we are very excited about and has been a long time coming,” Falvo said.
Falvo said United was already the largest airline in the world when it passed a milestone earlier this year with 1,000 aircraft in operation. It has added 10 new 737 MAX 8 narrow-body aircraft to its Pacific-based fleet and a new wide-body plane for the Guam-to-Honolulu flight.
He said they are transforming the travel experience for customers with more seats, larger overhead bins, new in-seat touch screen video monitors that feature hundreds of movie and television program choices, and Wi-Fi on board.
“And so for those of you who have taken the island hopper where the movie resets every flight, that will no longer be the case…. There will be a really, really big improvement to the customer experience,” Falvo said.
The new aircraft will start to arrive in Guam and the rest of the region in February and should be completely replaced by September of next year, he said.
Overall, Falvo said the continued sluggish recovery of the Korea and Japan markets, which are still down about 50% from 2019, remains the largest hurdle.
It’s driven by the unfavorable currency exchange rate against the U.S. dollar, and in Japan’s case, where United is more focused, a lingering post-pandemic policy pushed by the Tokyo government to boost that country’s economy, he said.
“There was a long period throughout Covid where people couldn’t or were discouraged from traveling outside of the country, and there was a large campaign within Japan to promote domestic flying to support their own economy,” Falvo said.
“There are surprisingly few people who have passports today in order to leave the country. It’s a hurdle that is probably easier for the folks on this call,” Falvo said.
He suggested that PATA officials mount a campaign targeting those who no longer have passports, urging them to seek renewals for travel to Micronesia.
Falvo attended the PATA Micronesia second triennial general membership meeting in Yap via videoconference from the U.S. mainland. The theme of this year’s meeting was “Cultivating Connectivity Throughout Micronesia.”
