Qatar Airways announced on February 6th, the launch of flights services from Auckland (New Zealand) to Doha (Qatar), therefore becoming the longest flight route in operation. The Boeing 777-200 aircraft type will be used to service the route on a daily basis, which takes approximately 17.5 hours to cover a distance of over 14,500 kilometres. The record for longest passenger flight has previously been held by multiple commercial airliners throughout the world including Emirates airlines’ Auckland to Dubai service, which takes 15 minutes less than the current record.

On the 4th of February 2017, a number of Iraqi media sources reported that state carrier, Iraqi Airways, had been removed from the EU Air Safety List. Despite these initial claims made by Iraq’s Minister of Transportation, both the European Commission and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have reportedly stated that the airline has not been removed and continues to be prohibited from operating within EU airspace.

Tigerair Australia has announced that flights to Indonesia will not resume in the near future, as the Indonesian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had denied the airline’s appeal and approval requests. Flights to Denpasar were suspended in early January after the DGCA claimed that the airline had sold one way tickets, which was in violation of their licensing agreement. As a result of the DGCA’s ruling, Tigerair Australia confirmed that the resumption of Australia/Denpasar flights services will not pursued.