From a base on the tiny island of Tinian, Star Marianas Air flies to other US island territories in the Pacific. One of its scheduled flights is one of the shortest routes in the world, a less than 10-minute hop from Saipan to Tinian.
In these days of long airport security lines and faceless online reservation systems, imagine booking a flight with an airline where you can ask for your pilot by name and then sit in the co-pilot's seat.
The drone of the engine makes hearing difficult. But the backseat passenger, a burly bearded gentleman, feels an urgent need to be heard, and he gets the passenger behind the pilot to tap him on the shoulder."Aren't you going to shut that door?" the backseat passenger asks."I will before takeoff. Gets too hot in here if I do it now," he shouts to the back seat.
Tourists like to go home and share their experiences with pictures on Chinese social media sites like Weibo, says Shaun Christian, president the airline founded by his father, Robert Christian, in 2008. "We have to ... make sure they don't start becoming complacent or that they start to find interesting and exciting things to do with the airplane to get that excitement back," he says. The company funds activities like scuba diving or ATV treks to make sure there's an outlet.
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