Alii Palau Airlines (Koror) will launch on November 23, 2023, using an A320-200N chartered in from Drukair (KB, Paro). The once-weekly roundtrips between Singapore Changi and Koror will increase to twice weekly from December 21 and are an extension of Druk Air's existing scheduled flights between Paro and Singapore.

As previously reported in ch-aviation, Alii Palau had intended to start flying on the Koror - Singapore city pair earlier this year using a "luxury" configured A319-100 leased from an unnamed Abu Dhabi-based supplier.

"Changi Airport is happy to welcome a new city link to Palau, which enhances Changi’s network with the Southwest Pacific region," said Changi Airport's Executive Vice President of Air Hub and Cargo Development, Lim Ching Kiat. "Travellers from Palau can also use the new flight to visit Singapore and other countries, leveraging on Changi Airport’s connectivity to Southeast Asia and beyond."

After-dark landing restrictions at Paro Airport mean the aircraft operating Druk Air's twice-weekly late-afternoon arrival into Singapore must overnight there before working the return sector back to Paro the following day. Previously, Druk Air monetised this downtime by wet-leasing the aircraft to operate overnight flights, including flying Singapore - Dili - Singapore for Air Timor (Dili). The new arrangement with Alii Palau sees the Druk Air A320neo push back from Singapore just after midnight, arrive at Koror before breakfast time, and return to Singapore by lunchtime before continuing to Paro. Palau-based outlets report that Alii Palau was close to signing a deal with a Myanmar-based operator to provide the aircraft but, due to sanctions, "felt it was not quite right."