ndonesian-based airline Tigerair Mandala has announced that they will suspend operations on July 1st 2014. The airline has had poor financial performance for several years and has recently undertaken significant capacity reduction. The airline’s key stake holders, which include the Tiger Airways Holdings Group and the Saratoga Group, recently entered talks with potential investors regarding a share acquisition or purchase of the small airline division. With the failure of these talks it was concluded that the operations, currently only consisting of five aircraft, would be suspended. The aircraft will be returned to their lessors and future bookings will be either refunded or booked via an alternative Tigerair airline division.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has recently completed an audit of the aviation infrastructure utilised within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The audit identified that a significant number of the country’s navigational aids did not meet the required international standards. As a consequence, the navigational aids have been categorised as un-serviceable, indicating that the capability of aircraft to safely navigate throughout the DRC using these navigation aids has been significantly compromised. The civil aviation regulatory authority of the DRC, the Régie des Voies Aériennes (RAV) responded to the audit results by requesting additional time for the regulator to undertake the required re-calibration process of the nav-aids. By late June 2014, no amended update to the non-compliant nav-aid declaration had been formalised.

On the 8th of June 2014, a group of Taliban insurgents invaded and occupied Jinnah international Airport (Karachi, Pakistan) for several hours. While the Pakistani security forces later re-captured the airport, it was attacked for a second and third time, with the subsequent attacks failing to re-capture the facility. In response to the deteriorating security situation at the airport facility, a number of airlines temporarily scaled back or suspended their operations to Karachi. By late June 2014, the majority of these airlines had recommenced standard operations to Karachi.