Originally Posted by
Often1
2. Neither Guam nor the CNMI have a Congressman
Wrong. At least the CNMI does. Guam has a congresswoman. All 441 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are known as congressman/woman, including all delegates and PR's resident commissioner.
Originally Posted by
Often1
Even if Congress got into the act, does anybody really think that it's going to enact a law requiring air carriers to serve free sandwiches? How much protein? How many carbs?
When you cannot bring any food beyond customs and have one-hour connections and UA can run out of BOB before the last row in economy, you have a problem.
Originally Posted by
Bear96
UA should just threaten to pull out of these markets entirely if the governments are going to make it difficult for them to operate there. These routes already have unique operational headaches.
Wish all you want, but if UA pulls out, the FSM and the RMI will have to ask the USG to subsidize transport or risk significant impacts in US Pacific military. (Guess why no US pax airlines operate to Afghanistan or Diego Garcia?)
Why did COA/CMI not have so much operational headaches? Just because the same 738s aged from 0-5 to 5-10?
Originally Posted by
FlyWorld
As noted upthread, UA is forced to fly a larger jet than is otherwise supported by demand on this route.
Wrong. UA chose to fly a larger jet (HI 772) than supported by demand (764, filled to the brim most every day). Then DL got all the GSA contract pairs. Any gov flyer with a passport (except maybe the marshal transferring prisoners) has to fly DL.
And let me add that the Cape Air saga damaged UA's reputation to a large degree in the CNMI. And the blame is rightly on UA. Cape Air flew ATRs efficiently when CO was in charge, and then couldn't maintain a two-plane operation resulting in frequent days-long cancellations with daily UA 738s to the rescue. Sure the CNMI economy was worsening, but that only reduced GUM-SPN from three carriers to one, prices went up to $400 RT, and Cape still couldn't maintain a second plane.