Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – More than 1,800 night flights, equivalent to 8% of the totalnumber of domestic flights, will be operated from January 21 to February 25 to meet the increasing travel demand duringthe Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday.
The Civil AviationAuthority of Vietnam (CAAV) issued a document allowing nightflights during the Tet holiday, and asked carriers to take actions to minimiseflight delays and cancellations, and to intensify control to ensure aviationsafety.
Localairports, especially the Dong Hoi, Phu Cat, Chu Lai, Tuy Hoa, Tho Xuan, Vinh, and Pleiku, were urged to develop specific plans and measures to ensurethe capacity to provide services during the holiday and ensure sufficientresources, equipment and infrastructure facilities to serve flights following airline's operation plans.
Domesticairlines are requested to proactively and timely provide accurate informationabout their demand for operating night flights to aviation serviceproviders to ensure the quality of air services.
BambooAirways said it has just added one more Airbus A320 aircraft to its fleet. Asplanned, another will be added to the firm’s fleet from the middle ofJanuary.
It plans to increaseits capacity by over 20% during peak times, focusing on increasing the frequencyof flights on major routes such as Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh City, between Hanoi/HCMCity and Da Nang, and those with high demand such as HCM City - Vinh/ThanhHoa/Hai Phong. Additionally, the airline will also increase night flights onthe routes connecting HCM City with Hanoi, Vinh, and Da Nang.
Similarly,Vietjet has also added four more aircraft to its fleet, lifting the total aircraftof the firm to 103.
The CAAV has estimated that the domestic air carriers will operate about33,800 flights during the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, or between January 24and February 2, up 14% year-on-year and 21% as compared with normal days.
There will be some 24,200 domesticflights, representing an increase of 2% from the sameperiod last year; and 9,600 internationalflights, up 60% year-on-year.
The busiest routes include Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City,HCM City-Da Nang/Vinh/Dong Hoi/Quy Nhon/Chu Lai/Thanh Hoa/Hue/Tuy Hoa,and Can Tho-Vinh, and vice versa.
The airlines expect to fly 7.2 million passengersduring Tet, the biggest holiday in the year in Vietnam, of them more than 5million domestic ones, up 4% year-on-year./.
