A 17-seater Harbin Y-12 Caroline Islands Air (CIA) plane by Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) will fill in the gap that United Airlines will leave when it ends its Yap to Palau route on January 7.
CIA flew to Palau yesterday for a few hours with a delegation led by FSM President Peter Christian.
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The other members of the delegation were Tony Ganngiyan, Governor of Yap; Vincent Figir, former Governor, Yap; The Honorable Bruno Tharngan, Chairman, Council of Tamol, Yap; ; the Joses Gallen, Secretary, FSM Department of Justice; Lukner Weilbacher, Secretary, FSM Department of Transportation, Communication & Infrastructure; and Alex Tretnoff , CEO, Caroline Islands Air and recently certified pilot for the Harbin Y-12.
The delegation flew with CIA’s maiden flight to Palau to finalize the air service agreement between FSM, Yap State and Palau.
Yap Governor Tony Ganngiyan said CIA will “fill in the gap” that United Airlines will leave as it pulls out its air service between Yap and Palau.
Tretnoff told reporters here that starting next week, for a one month trial, CIA will be flying twice a week from Yap to Palau. The proposed schedule is that CIA arrives from Yap every Tuesday and Friday at 6 p.m., departs to Yap every Wednesday and Saturday at 6 p.m.
Trenoff said the schedule was selected to ensure that travelers from Yap can have easy connections to the United Airlines flight from Palau to Manila , scheduled every Tuesday and Friday.
Tretnoff said that this is the first flight of CIA internationally and they are offering a price of one- way ticket from Yap to Palau at $200.
The announcement of United Airlines to discontinue the Yap –Palau flight was cause of concern as most have now to connect to Guam to leave the island.
The CIA plane was a donation by China to FSM. [/restrict]