SFC.VN: 20 Years of Growth and Expansion

Colonel Ha Tien Dung, General Director of Service Flight Corporation of Vietnam, said: During the past 20 years of construction and development, SFC.VN has always made high and sustainable growth rates. During its first years, the company’s revenues were only tens of billions of Vietnamese dong. In 1998, SFC.VN totally controlled the domestic helicopter flight service market. The leadership in the domestic market made a turning point in the corporation’s development. Since 2003, SFC.VN has always been the Grade-A company and one of the best-performing military-run businesses. The average individual productivity was nearly VND2 billion a year in 2007 and 2008. As a prestigious air service provider in Vietnam, the corporation has also expanded its services to other countries in the region in recent years. Its services are always highly appreciated by customers and the name of SFC.VN has flown very far. In addition to flight service, the corporation is also the founding shareholder of the Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB), Mbland Real Estate Joint Stock Company, Vietnam Flight Company and a controlling shareholder in Bien Hoa Joint Venture Helicopter Repairing Company (BHC) and other companies.

Flights for oil and gas offshore operations led to the formation of the corporation. In 1979, for the first time, a crew squad of the Vietnam Air Force was assigned to carry officials of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation (currently Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group -PetroVietnam) and officials of related agencies to Dan Queen Ship to finalise procedures to make the first drill on the Vietnamese continental shelf. On January 31, 1979, the flight was very successful, proving the talent and development potentiality of the service flight industry in Vietnam. From the first crew in 1979, the first fleet for oil production and exploration services was officially established in 1983. To serve the growing demand of the Vietnamese oil and gas industry, the Helicopter Company was founded in 1984 and the Service Flight Corporation of Vietnam was officially set up on June 1, 1989.

The oil and gas service flight sector is very complex, especially in bad weather and night conditions, because of offshore long flight range and unfixed landing pad as on platforms or oil tankers. Meanwhile, oil producers and drillers always have very strict requirements for service quality. To meet their demands, SFC.VN has promoted the activeness and creativeness of its staffs and enterprisingly invested in equipment and personnel training. To date, SFC.VN has served more than 50 Vietnamese and international oil and gas companies with highest service quality. In recent years, the corporation has completed more than 10,000 hours of flight service each year. Especially, during the past 30 years, the corporation provided more than 160,000 hours of offshore flight service for oil and gas industry with the absolute safety. These have created a leading supplier of oil and gas industry service flights in Asia.

Since 2000, SFC.VN has expanded its service flight offshore operations to Norway, India, Malaysia, East Timor and other nations. The international presence of a service provider in Vietnam, especially grey matter sectors like flight service, reaffirms the prestige and trademark of SFC.VN in particular and the Vietnamese aviation industry in general in the eyes of the international community.

Together with service flights for oil and gas offshore operations, since 1990, SFC.VN has started flight service for the MIA (missing in action) programme. MIA activities mainly take place in far-lying mountainous and isolated areas. To date, the corporation has conducted 97 flights with dozens of thousands of flights in Vietnam. The United States has highly appreciated the close cooperation and wholehearted, efficient service and flight skill of SFC.VN in the searching programme.

In addition to its main services, SFC.VN also expanded helicopter flight services for other economic sectors like tourism flight, medical evacuation, filming and photographing flight, geological survey flight, forest seed-sowing flight and flights for sport and cultural events. SFC.VN has also actively carried out search and rescue flights, natural calamity relief flights, economic development survey flights in mountainous and island regions. At the same time, SFC.VN also ensures the absolute safety for VIP flights and performs national defence and security tasks.

Understanding the importance and decisiveness of human resources, SFC.VN has focused on investing in selection and training activities. The corporation has pumped large sums of money to human resource training in Vietnam and in other nations. It has joined hands with domestic and international universities to train its human resources. At present, SFC.VN has a capable workforce to meet all requirements in Vietnam and from international customers. More than 70 percent of pilots and technicians are holding international certificates. A pilot capably performs 500 hours of flight a year, with some making a record of over 800 hours, totalling more than 10,000 hours of flight. Pilots of the corporation are the first in Vietnam to receive and operate new helicopters imported from foreign nations and train foreign pilots. 

With first two old helicopters, SFC.VN has invested in the world’s most modern offshore helicopter fleet consisting of Mi-172, Super Puma, Super PumaL2, EC-155B1 and EC 255 (an EC helicopter costs some VND400 billion). Since 2002, the corporation purchased and signed contracts to purchase 10 choppers to expand its fleet.

Together with fleet investment, SFC.VN has invested a large sum of money to build, reinforce and upgrade aviation infrastructure like airport, terminals, workshops and bases as well as internationally standardised land equipment.

Efforts and contributions of SFC.VN have been recognised by the Party, the State and the Army. The corporation and its member units have been presented many noble prizes like the third-class War Medal in 1999, the Labour hero in the renovation process title for Southern Service Flight Company in 2000, the first-class Feat of Arms Medal for Northern Service Flight Company in 1999, the first-class Labour Medal for Southern Service Flight Company in 2005, the second-class Labour Medal for Northern Service Flight Company in 1996 and a lot of other titles. Especially, in November 2009, SFC.VN was honourably coffered the Labour Hero title.

For forthcoming business activities, Colonel Ha Tien Dung said: Powered by its 20-year strength and tradition, the corporation will continue renovating to become a comprehensively powerful business in the process of international economic integration.