ZAMBOANGA CITY, 3 October 2004 — A Philippine airliner is to open new flights between Zamboanga City in Mindanao and Sandakan in Malaysia’s oil-rich state of Sabah, the island’s Daily Express website said yesterday.
It said the Manila-based South Phoenix Airways Company Incorporated (SPACI) would launch its inaugural flight to Sandakan middle of October in collaboration with Sabah’s Layang-Layang Aerospace Sdn. Bhd.
It also opened in April several flights from Palawan province in central Philippines to Sandakan. Both Layang-Layang Aerospace Sdn. Bhd. and South Phoenix Airways Co. Inc., are also the official provider of BIMP-EAGA regional cross-border air services.
SPACI marketing manager Emerson Calderson and the airline’s vice president for operations Capt. Jose Luis Concha were in Sabah on Wednesday and met with Sandakan Municipal Council Deputy President Thomas Lau and other officials.
Calderson said the air service would further enhance trade and tourism between the two countries, especially Sabah and the southern Philippines which are part of the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA).
The BIMP-EAGA is Asia’s largest regional grouping, spanning territories of the four ASEAN countries.
EAGA comprises the entire sultanate of Brunei Darussalam; 10 provinces in the Indonesian islands of Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Irian Jaya; Sabah, Sarawak, and Labuan in Malaysia; and Mindanao and Palawan in the Philippines.
The flight between Zamboanga City and Sandakan would only take one hour. At present, a Filipino sea-liner Aleson Shipping, based in Zamboanga City, is currently operating an 18-hour ferry service between Sandakan and Zamboanga.
Layang-Layang Aerospace Sdn. Bhd. was established in April 1994 in the oil rich town of Miri in Sarawak, where most of its operations concentrated in tourism and it served as a crucial air link to most of the rural towns there. Sabah now serves as its air hub.
