THERE will be no more direct flights from Hong Kong to Saipan, according to a travel agency and charter service provider.
The flight from Hong Kong on Sunday, May 4, 2025 would be the last, said KK Chan, chief executive officer of ShenZhen Professional Workers Int’l Travel Service Co. Ltd., one of the two companies that have a contract with Hong Kong Airlines for charter flights to the CNMI.
ShenZhen and a local company on Saipan have partnered to cater to passengers from China for chartered services.
In an interview on Saturday, Chan said she was told that if the delay in the processing of electronic authorization applications or ETA under the Economic Vitality & Security Travel Authorization Program or EVS-TAP was not resolved, the airline company would also terminate its route to the CNMI.
Ken Chen, the general manager of LT Travel Co. Ltd., which serves travelers from China, said the direct flights from Hong Kong have stopped because of the delay in the ETA processing for Chinese travelers. He said since April 5, 2025, no one has gotten their ETAs approved.
“Everyone’s [ETAs] are still pending,” Chen said. He recalled that when the Hong Kong-Saipan flights started on April 28, 2024, it took tourists from China only two to three hours to get their ETAs approved. Others took three to five days, but nonetheless their ETAs got approved and they were able to travel to the CNMI.
For over a year, Hong Kong Airlines has been transporting more than 300 tourists from China to Saipan on two weekly flights.
Chan said prior to this issue with ETAs, her company was preparing to increase the number of charter flights from China, to include four times a week from Shanghai, three flights a week from Beijing, and two flights a week from Guangzhou.
For almost a month now, Chan said 1,000 Chinese tourists who want to travel to the CNMI are being prevented from doing so.
Chan said her company has been bringing tourists to the CNMI since 2010. After the Covid-19 travel restrictions were lifted, her company put a lot of effort into marketing the CNMI to Chinese travelers.
If this problem with ETAs is not resolved, Chan said more airline companies will lose their confidence in the CNMI as a destination.
She said they are aware that the CNMI leaders are already reaching out to the federal government about the issue.
If Hong Kong Airlines terminates its CNMI flight service, “it will be very hard to reestablish that,” she added. “So we urge the federal government to resolve this, and the CNMI government to help us send our message,” Chan said.
In March 2025, the Marianas Visitors Authority reported that arrivals from China reached 1,471 in March 2025, reflecting a 20% increase from the 1,222 visitors recorded in March 2024. Arrivals from China make up 9% of the market share, slightly higher than the 7% market share from Japan, where MVA has been promoting the CNMI.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, China was the CNMI’s second largest source market, with multiple direct flights. MVA previously maintained a representative office in China to support these efforts.
In March 2019, a year before the pandemic, there were 16,558 visitors from China.
