Jeju Air’s recently announced plans to pull back 10% to 15% of its international flights following a deadly Dec. 29 plane crash will mean a reduction of about 5,000 seats to Guam in the next three months, according to acting Guam Visitors Bureau General Manager Gerry Perez.
“The Jeju situation is still lingering…it’s gonna be a little bit of an issue,” Perez said at a GVB board meeting Monday.
Perez said Jeju Air will reduce flights from January through March, but plans to add 22,000 seats on flights from July through October.
Korea’s largest low-cost carrier announced the reduction in flights for the winter season in order to carry out maintenance work.
Jeju Air Flight 2216 from Bangkok to Muan county in Korea was attempting an emergency landing when it overran the runway and struck a concrete structure, killing 179 passengers and crew, according to authorities. Only two survived.
It was the deadliest aviation disaster on Korean soil, and the deadliest crash involving a South Korean carrier since the 1997 crash of Korean Air Flight 801 on Guam.
Following the Dec. 29, 2024 crash, Korean media reported thousands of flight reservations were canceled, both domestically and internationally.
The Guam International Airport Authority said the Jeju Air flights to Guam continued in the immediate aftermath of the crash.
GVB’s airline incentive program
Jeju Air’s pullback comes as GVB ratchets up an airline incentive program aimed at boosting seat capacity from South Korea.
Perez reported that Korean Air, Jeju Air and Air Busan have signed up for the program, which will pay them a subsidy for guaranteed flights to Guam.
“So that gives us an additional 90,000 seats for the year,” Perez said.
But GVB Board Chairman George Chiu said it still falls short of their goal of raising monthly seat capacity from the current 31,000 seats to 55,000 from South Korea, Guam’s top visitor market.
“Are we in agreement that Korea, it’s just seats? If we had the seats, people will come?” Chiu asked GVB board members.
Chiu said if they were to add another 20,000 seats a month, and with a conservative average spend of $1,000 per visitor, “that’s basically $20 million a month, $240 million a year.”
“This is an easy economic benefit for our tourism industry, but yet we’re hand tied because we don’t have the money we need,” Chiu said.
Perez reported that GVB has spent $1.9 million so far on the airline incentive program, from a total of $5 million that it carved from its annual budget.
But they may be able to add another $4.9 million for the incentive program from a now-defunded $15 million project to rehabilitate Matapang beach park in Tumon.
Perez said he still needs confirmation from the Department of Administration that the funds are still available.
The $4.9 million may still be reduced, however, by a planned $500,000 allocation for the Marianas Open jiu-jitsu tournament, which is a series of events staged in Guam and other countries such as Japan and Korea.
Search for GVB head
The GVB board also got an update on the search for a new general manager.
The search committee composed of board members Peter Ada, Ken Yanagisawa and Ho Eun have been interviewing applicants.
GVB advertised on Dec. 27 that it will accept applications through Jan. 15.
Chiu said they would recess the Monday meeting until Jan. 24 when they could discuss the recommendations of the search committee.
Adelup communications director Krystal Paco-San Agustin said Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero would be making a recommendation to the board, but on Monday said she had “no updates on this topic.”