More and more international air carriers are flocking to Vietnam, seeing it as a promising land with golden opportunities to invest in or launch more routes to as it is nearing the WTO entry and recently inked a visa-exemption agreement with other ASEAN member countries.
“There are many positive signals of the impending boom of flight routes to be launched and operated by international airliners in Vietnam in the coming time due to its sector’s high and stable growth rate of annual 20 per cent,” an industry analyst from the Southern Aviation Authorities said.
The official stressed the country’s nearing WTO accession and the US’s public and business circles’ growing support for Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with Vietnam will facilitate a new investment wave predicted to pour into Vietnam. International airlines, therefore, will not want to miss this chance to promote their business in the emerging country that has achieved the second highest economic growth in Asia in recent years
Moreover, the recent take-off of the local tourism sector together with signatories in the Framework Agreement on Visa Exemption (FAVE) in the ASEAN area are also the real incentives for foreign carriers, including low-cost airlines, to join the Vietnam market, he said.
The Vietnamese government has recently also attached greater importance to developing infrastructures for the local aviation industry including new air terminals, airport complexes, buying more aircraft and modernizing its airline sector’s facilities, creating favorable conditions for both domestic and foreign players in the field.
So far this year, around 30 international airliners have entered Vietnam to operate their business and launch more flights to the country, the official noted.
Of which, Korean Air has announced it will provide seven flights a week from HCM City to Seoul and vice versa, instead of its three flights at present, Ngo Tran Trong Tuan, head of the Business Division of Korean Air in Vietnam said, adding Vietnam is one of the most promising aviation and tourism markets in Asia and in the world. Korean Air has been witnessing very encouraging business performance over the last few years.
Air France has also decided to increase the frequency of flights from Vietnam to France from five flights a week to seven flights a week (transit at Bangkok). There are three flights available a week from Hanoi to Paris, and four flights a week from HCM City to Paris.
Since July 3, 2006, Russian Aeroflot has also resumed flights from Hanoi to Moscow with two flights a week after 10 months of interruption.
Notably, in June of this year Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA) officially opened the HCM City-Bandar Seri Begawan, making Vietnam Brunei Darussalam’s sixth largest and Air China firstly launched the first and direct air route from HCM City to Beijing with four flights a week.
In the same move, Malaysia Air Asia will open flights on the route of Hanoi-Kuala Lumpur in October whereas and JetStar of Australia will launch three direct flights on the Sydney-Ho Chi Minh route in November of this year (three flights a week).
Budget airlines are also trying to penetrate the growing market. Thai AirAsia, which entered Vietnam in 2005, currently flies twice a day between Hanoi and Bangkok while Singapore-based Tiger Airways became the first budget airline operating flights to Vietnam in April last year.
To compete well with such foreign rivals, Vietnam Airlines (VNA), the State-owned national flag carrier, plans to spend US$3 billion to boost its fleet from the current 39 aircraft to 100 aircraft by 2020, which is roughly the size of most major Asian airlines.
Pacific Airlines (PA), the second and only joint stock air carrier in the country, has also completed the signing of a contract to hire two additional Boeing B737-400 aircraft to be delivered in April 2007, bringing the PA’s fleet to six to meet the increasing domestic demand.
In the first eight months of this year, the air transport sector of the country conveyed 4.91 million passengers, up 13.1 per cent on year and transported 804,000 tons of cargoes, an on-year rise of 14.4 per cent, according to available statistics, recently released by the General Statistics Office (GSO).
VietnamNet, Young People
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