DAVAO CITY – A business leader announced that airlines Cathay Pacific and Xiamen Air plan to revive direct flights from Davao International Airport (DIA) to Hong Kong and Jinjiang, China in the second half of this year.
THE Davao International Airport in 2018. (Wikipedia)
Arturo Milan, co-chair of the Regional Development Council-11, said during the Wednesdays Media Forum at Habi at Kape here that the airlines seek to resume their services after more than three years of suspension due to the pandemic.
International flights from Davao were suspended in early 2020 after news regarding an outbreak of a “mysterious disease” in mainland China that turned out to be Covid-19 broke out.
Cathay Pacific used to have direct flights between Davao and Hong Kong five times a week while XiamenAir had twice weekly flights between Davao and Jinjiang before air connectivity was halted.
Direct flights to Singapore and Doha, Qatar earlier resumed.
Scoot and Singapore Airlines service the route to Singapore while Qatar Airways the Doha route from DIA.
Milan added that they plan to meet Malaysian Consul General Deddy Faisal Bin Ahmad Salleh on how they can revive flights to Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia.
He said the government bared plans to continue the expansion of DIA to accommodate more flights and passengers and the possibility of constructing additional international flight in another location.
He said among the areas being considered as another location for a new airport are Tagum City, Panabo City, Davao City, Island Garden City of Samal, and Davao Occidental.
He said the “unsolicited proposal” of Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp. of Davao-based business tycoon Dennis Uy for the modernization of DIA is currently under review by the National Economic Development Authority-Investment Coordination Committee.
Last February, NEDA-11 Director Maria Lourdes Lim said the Department of Transportation returned the unsolicited proposal to Chelsea as it asked the firm to comply with the revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Republic Act 6957, as amended by RA 7718, also known as the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law.
She said the Oct. 19, 2022 amendments to the rules and regulations require the private proponents to provide a more transparent system to evaluate and implement big-ticket projects under a public-private partnership scheme and put in place a “greatest value and reduction of risk” management system.