Philippine Airlines is looking to establish a regional hub at Davao, Mindanao Island, Philippines to serve both Southeast Asian and Australasian destinations. PAL CE Jaime Bautista said the airline would “definitely consider a hub,” at Davao’s Francisco Bangoy International. Bautista said potential destinations for the carrier from Davao could include Singapore Changi, Malaysia’s KLIA2, Bali Denpasar and Australia as well as local destination Manado. “In fact, some of our [most] profitable domestic routes are [already] out of Davao,” he said of existing services to Manila and Cebu. Other Filipino carriers, including Cebu Pacific, have already established significant operations out of Davao, partly to ease congestion and delays out of Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International. <br/>
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Oman Air has “temporarily suspended” services to the Omani city of Sohar, citing a failure to achieve the necessary financial targets on services there. Sohar is located around 124 miles to the northwest of the Omani capital, Muscat, where Oman Air has its main hub. The carrier said it had tried since Nov 2014 to make flights to Sohar viable, but without success. “Oman Air held numerous meetings with companies and travel agencies at Sohar … where they were offered special passenger fares along with other privileges, so as to promote flights and support connectivity of the route from Sohar to Oman Air’s global network. However, no economic return or impact has been derived for those initiatives, despite the economic challenges the company and country are currently facing.” <br/>
Virgin Australia’s CE, John Borghetti, faced a crisis a few months ago when a major shareholder tried to oust him over his refusal to rein in the airline’s expensive growth strategy. The executive survived the attempted boardroom coup, and last week delivered a strong riposte: a A$1b capital raising to repair the airline’s parlous balance sheet, and two new Chinese shareholders — HNA Group and Nanshan Group. Air NZ, which pushed Virgin’s board to sack Borghetti, is now selling most of its 22.5% stake in the airline. The deals will ensure Virgin remains a viable competitor to Qantas Airways, which retains 63% of the domestic market. They also reflect the international ambitions of Chinese airlines, which are seeking partners to exploit a tourism boom that saw 100m Chinese travel overseas last year. <br/>
Virgin Australia has secured the necessary traffic rights to mount flights to Beijing and Hong Kong from June 1 2017. IASC has approved the carrier’s request for 1,925 seats a week of capacity to China and 7 flights a week to Hong Kong. The determination, published June 17, was valid for 5 years. The daily flights to Beijing and Hong Kong would be operated with Airbus A330-200s as part of an alliance with China-based HNA Aviation, Virgin has said previously. However, the airline was yet to confirm which Australian city the two new services would be flown from. The IASC determination said the Australia-China route had grown by an average of 12% a year over the past 5 years, adding the route was “highly competitive”. <br/>
Air Madagascar has been removed from the EU's safety blacklist, allowing it to fly within the 28-nation bloc for the first time since 2011. "All the planes of Air Madagascar can fly over European skies as from Thursday noon," James Andrianalisoa, DG of Civil Aviation of Madagascar, said. Air Madagascar said that its removal from the blacklist would allow it to proceed with seeking a strategic partner. The decision to take Air Madagascar off the list was announced in Brussels Thursday. The govt directly owns 90% of Air Madagascar, while Air France owns 0.2%, staff and other individuals hold 0.12% and the rest is held by state-owned companies. It has a fleet of 11 aircraft and employs about 2,000 people. <br/>