XTRA Airways (Fort Lauderdale International) has returned the rights to operate five weekly flights in total from Guam International and Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands to China to the US Department of Transportation (DOT), which it obtained earlier this year.

The carrier has returned 3x weekly frequencies for the Saipan-Nanjing or Shenzhen routes and 2x weekly frequencies for the Guam or Northern Mariana to Tianjin or Hangzhou routes.

XTRA Airways only briefly used the first traffic rights, operating from Saipan to Nanjing between September 24, 2017, and November 4, 2017. It has cancelled the services without prior warning after a mechanical failure on one of its B737-800s on November 4. After this event, the airline has never resumed the service, abandoning as many as 2,000 Chinese tourists with holidays booked, The Guam Daily Post reported. According to the newspaper, most of the costs of the cancellations had to be borne by Chinese tour operators since XTRA Airways denied responsibility.

According to The Guam Daily Post, the total cost of XTRA's cancellation of Saipan-Nanjing services could amount to USD3 million.