Air passengers near pre-pandemic levels

The total number of air passengers passing through domestic airports will reach 80% of the peak in 2019, said Dinh Viet Thang, director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV).
Air passengers near pre-pandemic levels ảnh 1Passengers at Noi Bai International Airport.(Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The total number of air passengers passingthrough domestic airports will reach 80% of the peak in 2019, said DinhViet Thang, director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV).

He said passenger volume through Vietnamese airports reached more than 81million passengers in the ten months of 2022, with 100 million forecast for thewhole year. In 2019, the number was 120 million.

Vietnamese airlines carried 40 million passengers, and it is expected that thetotal number of passengers transported by domestic airlines in 2022 will reach55 million. 

The domestic market has experienced high growth and can be considered one ofthe best post-pandemic growth markets. However, the international market hasonly recovered about 50%, said CAAV.

Thang told local media: "The restoration of flight routes in some keymarkets, especially China, is still facing difficulties due to the COVID-19pandemic. The negotiation to reconnect the flight route with this market isbeing actively implemented. Some markets such as the Republic of Korea, Japan,and Taiwan have opened, but travel demand is still very low."

Although the recovery results of international aviation have not been asexpected, he calculated: "The bright spot for the international market inthe first ten months is that we have opened the Indian market with a highproduction volume related to good shipping activities."

Pham Viet Dung, Chairman of the Vietnam Aviation Business Association, and Chairmanof Vietnam Air Traffic Management Corporation, said the local aviationmarket was on the way to recovery but not yet even in all segments. Thedomestic market has fully recovered, but the international market has recoveredvery slowly. Domestic passenger transport in 2022 increased by 12% comparedto 2019.

On the other hand, international freight transport increased, but domesticcargo decreased. Therefore, industry revenue is assessed as disproportionatedue to the increase in fuel prices and some input prices, said CAAV.

Currently, businesses in infrastructure transportation have experienced astrong recovery, while airlines and passenger transport suppliers still facemany difficulties.

In the first half of 2022, Vietnam Airlines Group, including Vietnam Airlines,Pacific Airlines and VASCO, achieved a net revenue of nearly 30 trillion VND (1.3billion USD) but still lost nearly 5.2 trillion VND.

According to the experts, airlines and passenger transport providers still hadto deal with the pandemic's adverse problems, especially the cash flow imbalancein two years when their operations were mostly frozen.

At the same time, rapidly increasing flights were seen forcoming Tet (Lunar NewYear) as local airlines race to increase 1.7 million seats to supply,including more than 1.1 million seats from Vietnam Airlines Corporationthat consists of Vietnam Airlines, Pacific Airlines andVasco and more than 600,000 seats from Vietjet Air.

CAAV said that on the occasion of the new Year of theCat, from December 15 to the end of January 15, airlines will increaseseats to serve people's travel needs.

As the national carrier, Vietnam Airlines reported an after-tax lossof nearly 2.5 trillion VND in the third quarter of 2022, down 985 billion VNDcompared to the loss of the third quarter of last year. 

In the first nine months of 2022, Vietnam Airlines Corporation hasoperated more than 106,000 flights, up 118% over the same period lastyear.
Aviation activity recovered when the blockade orders because ofCOVID-19 were lifted, helping Vietnam Airlines' consolidated net revenue in thethird quarter of 2022 to reach 21.15 trillion VND, 4.5 times higher thanlast year. As a result, the corporation moved from a gross loss of more than 3 trillion VNDin the third quarter of 2021 to a gross profit from sales and servicesof 165 billion VND in the last quarter.

The corporation said that the international shipping market was stillrecovering slowly, plus negative factors such as high fuel prices, theprolonged Russia-Ukraine conflict and financial risks of exchangerates and interest rates, so production and business activities wouldcontinue to suffer losses in the third quarter and the first nine months of2022. 

A representative of Vietnam Airlines forecast the internationalmarket would gradually recover, giving the corporation's productionand business activities more positive results in 2023.

Data from the finance and enterprise system WiChart shows that the number ofinternational visitors to Vietnam in October by air was nearly 434,000, anincrease of 11.4% compared to the previous month and 51 times higherthan the same period in 2021 when the whole country was in lockdownagainst the pandemic.

The total number of passengers transported by air in October was more than 5.14million, 28 times higher than last October. In July 2022, amid the peak summertourist season, Vietnam’s aviation industry transported nearly 5.9 millionpassengers, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic, said WiChart./.
VNA

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