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The families of those onboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 said Monday they will mount a debris-hunting trip to Madagascar to search for clues to what happened to the missing plane. Investigators have identified six pieces of wreckage to have either definitely or almost certainly come from the jet, which vanished with 239 people while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014. Voice 370, a family association, said the debris collected so far has all been found off Africa's east coast. "Despite these hugely important finds, there has been no systematic, organized search by any responsible party. This leaves the (next-of-kin) no other choice except to take it upon ourselves to do something to find answers and closure," it said in a statement. An ongoing search in the southern Indian Ocean, where the plane is believed to have crashed, has been fruitless and could be suspended soon. The Voice 370 statement said the seven-member team will focus their search along high potential sites based on drift modeling, largely focusing in areas on and around Ile Saint Marie, a tropical island off Madagascar's east coast. The group said they may set up an incentive system using their own funds to encourage the search for debris, and will aim to set up a notification system and local collection point for potential aircraft debris.<br/>

Qantas and American Airlines will fight a US transport regulator's decision to tentatively block an expansion of the pair's alliance which would have seen them fly more between Australia and the United States. The Flying Kangaroo and the US airline struck a deal in mid-2015 for Qantas to fly between Sydney and San Francisco and for American to fly between Sydney and Los Angeles, connecting to a network of destinations on either end, in a tie-up that was to open doors to new markets for both. But the US DoT issued a show cause order on Friday tentatively denying the airlines' application to expand their alliance because it could result in an unfair concentration of market power. If the deal was allowed to go ahead, Qantas and American would control about 60 per cent of traffic between the US and Australia, the DoT said in its decision, noting that consumers would have few other competitive options on the under-serviced route. American has pledged to fight the decision, which it said was "a significant departure from prior DoT decisions, which have long recognised the pro-competitive benefits of combining complementary international networks." "Other airlines have the significant competitive advantage of antitrust immunity in the US-Australasia market. With the same opportunity, American and Qantas will be able to compete more effectively and increase consumer benefits in the market," American said.<br/>