Bracing for Impact: Guam, CNMI facing air transport barriers that impede the industry’s takeoff

 By Jayvee Vallejera

Both Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are in the grip of a trend that stubbornly resists efforts to bring tourism numbers back to pre-pandemic levels, and both are scrambling for ways to find ideas and strategies that will stick and resuscitate anemic tourism numbers.

The strong U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen and Korean won makes it more expensive—and less appealing—for Korean and Japanese tourists to visit Guam and the CNMI.

The Guam Visitors Bureau and Marianas Visitors Authority also attributed the slow tourism growth to the global aircraft shortage.

The GVB paints a relatively rosier picture of the island’s arrival totals, reporting a surge in available air seats that it says signals momentum and sets the stage for continued gains in coming months.

But there is no relaxing just yet. According to GVB’s numbers on its website, Guam had 53,515 visitors in June. That is a 5.3-percent increase over the 50,826 visitors Guam had in June 2024. However, June’s arrival numbers are still 56 percent below the 122,102 visitors Guam had in June 2019. That means Guam still has a long way to go to double current arrival numbers and bring them back to pre-pandemic levels.

At this point, the U.S. territory’s arrival numbers are woefully short of its record-breaking performance in 2018, when it welcomed 1.55 million visitors.

It doesn’t bode well for Guam that one of its major pipelines for Korean tourists to Guam, Jeju Air, will suspend Incheon flights from September this year to March 2026. That’s 13 years of continuous flights to Guam down the drain.

Jeju Air is the largest low-cost airline in South Korea, and this decision is seen as a tremendous loss in available air seats to Guam.

Since its inaugural flight to Guam in 2012 until 2021, Jeju Air has reportedly brought over 18 million passengers to the U.S. territory.

Recent data, however, indicates a 21-percent drop in the number of Jeju Air passengers flying to Guam from October 2024 to June 2025, which could be a factor in its decision to suspend its Guam flights until March next year.

In the CNMI, Jeju Air, which flies twice daily from Seoul, will suspend its night flights from Sept. 8 to 30 due to low ticket sales and fares. The airline is also considering suspending flights to the CNMI from Oct. 12 to 25, although that decision has not been finalized yet.

This will predictably worsen the economic picture for the CNMI, which is already bleak as it is. MVA data shows there were only 190 tourists from China in July this year, only a little over 11,000 from South Korea that same month, and just 534 from Japan. These three used to be the backbone of the CNMI’s tourism markets.

GVB and MVA attributed Jeju Air’s decision to close the routes to current market instability, compounded by the merger between mega airlines Korean Air and Asiana Airlines in November 2020.

“Jeju's pause of Incheon-Guam service is disappointing, but we also acknowledge the fierce competition and restructuring needs within the industry," said Régine Biscoe Lee, GVB president and CEO, in a news release. 

MVA says the Asiana-Korean Air merger has also adversely affected the CNMI.

The restructuring has diverted demand away from Saipan, resulting in an oversupply of air seats to Guam and igniting a firestorm of setbacks that are disrupting the CNMI tourism market.

Jamika R. Taijeron, MVA managing director, explained that the mandates tied to the merger required both airlines to maintain their air seat capacity in Guam based on their air seat supply in 2019. “This has driven down ticket prices and shifted demand there,” she said.

Saipan fares also dropped, but unlike Guam, “our market cannot sustain operations with such low yields. Airlines are responding by reducing or suspending flights here,” she added.

Guam’s GVB reports a fast-paced rebound in the Korean travel market. Korean Air has increased its flights to Guam, adding additional daily flights from Incheon and Busan.

Guam’s monthly seat capacity has risen from over 39,000 in June to approximately 50,600 in July and surpassed 60,000 in August.

That’s not the case for the CNMI. According to the MVA, air seat capacity has plunged from 760,000 in fiscal year 2018 to just 260,000 projected for fiscal 2025—a 66 percent overall loss, including 59 percent from Korea and a 100 percent loss from mainland China, once the CNMI’s second-largest source market next to Korea.

MVA reports that visitor arrivals to the CNMI totaled 14,365 in July 2025, a 33-percent drop compared to 21,517 visitors in July 2024. This fiscal year, visitor arrivals are so far 30 percent lower than over the same period last year. 

The lack of consistent flights from Korea to Saipan has played a large part in this equation. Both Jeju Air and T’way Air—now the only two Korean airlines serving the CNMI—have periodically suspended their flights to Saipan in response to ticket sales, profitability or demand.

In July last year, there were 108 flights from Korea. This year in July, the CNMI just had 74 flights.

The same holds true for what was once the CNMI’s strongest tourism source market: Japan. Now a pale version of what was once a vibrant source in the late ’90s, the CNMI had its largest number of Japanese tourists in 1997, at a total of over 450,000. In July this year, only 534 came from Japan.

It’s the same picture for China. In 2019, over 200,000 Chinese tourists visited the CNMI. In July this year, that was down to just 190.

That could soon change in September, with Hong Kong Airlines expected to resume twice weekly flights to Saipan after U.S. Customs and Border Protection resumed processing a waiver program that allows prescreened Chinese nationals to travel to the CNMI without a visa. 

Both the MVA and the GVB recognize that the situation requires a suite of actions that include incentive programs that make it profitable for airlines to fly to a destination.

Guam is already on its way to doing that. The 38^th Guam Legislature has approved a supplemental budget of $10 million for airline incentives. The 2026 budget bill included the proposed appropriation for GVB’s airline incentive program, which would cover $5.4 million for Korean airlines and $5.7 million for low-cost carriers from Japan.

This is part of a three-pronged strategy that also includes co-op marketing, load factor incentives and turnaround support.

“Guam seeks to employ this tool to compete with other destinations for limited aircraft over the next 18 months,” GVB said. “⁠Without continued incentives in FY2026, airlines have no obligation to stay or add new routes to Guam.”

The MVA is also asking for a $10-million budget in fiscal 2026 to initiate a three-year stopgap plan to re-establish stable air service to the destination.

It urged the commonwealth government to give it immediate financial support and policy intervention so it could resolve flight instability.

Without immediate intervention, additional cuts to flights are expected in the coming months, MVA warns.

“Every day we delay, the situation worsens,” Taijeron said. “The [CNMI] needs a substantial and immediate financial injection to stabilize flights.”

MVA officials also met airline partners in August in Korea to find ways to stabilize air service. Board chairman Warren Villagomez, and Taijeron met with five airlines in Seoul in August to nail down commitments for a consistent flight schedule.

“Air service is the single most critical factor for our tourism economy,” said Villagomez. “Our meetings confirmed that unless we act quickly with financial support and targeted solutions, Saipan will continue to lose flights and seats.”

For the Japan market, MVA believes that more needs to be done on top of United Airlines’ latest decision to reinstate more flights by November.

It has created the Marianas Revival Project that aims to rebuild partnerships with influential stakeholders in Japan as a means to attract Japanese travelers and revive the stagnant market.

MVA is also exploring ways to tap funds through the U.S. Department of Transportation to address the urgent need for flight stabilization. It also wants to explore with USDOT the idea of setting in place a temporary, restricted cabotage waiver that would allow non-U.S. airlines to fly in the CNMI.

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