The Government has limited to 89 the number of additional aircraft that four domestic carriers can purchase by the year 2020 (Photo: viettimes.vn) Hanoi (VNA) - The Government has limited to 89 the number of additionalaircraft that four domestic carriers can purchase by the year 2020.
Major airports in the country do not have the infrastructure to deal with agreater number, according to the Government.
The latest aircraft purchase quota is contained in the draft Vietnam Strategyon Development of Air Transportation Products and Civil Reserve Air Fleet2016-2020, submitted to the Ministry of Transport by the Civil AviationAuthority of Vietnam.
Under the draft proposal, by 2020, Vietnam will have 230 civil airplanes, anincrease of 89 over the current fleet of 141.
Thefour domestic carriers had actually planned to buy a total of 199 airplanes by2020, led by Vietnam Airlines (including VASCO), 114, VietJet Air, 55, JetstarPacific Airlines, 30.
Explainingthe quota, Lai Xuan Thanh, head of the civil aviation authority told the VietnamGovernment Portal (VGP) that current infrastructure failed to meet the demandof aviation growth.
Therewas a shortage of airplane parking space at several airports, he said.
Thanhsaid the carriers should adjust their purchase plans based on the draft becauseof limited parking slots in Hanoi and HCM City airports.
Itwould take some time to expand the parking areas, he said, adding “It won’thappen in a day.”
Ministerof Transport Truong Quang Nghia agreed with Thanh that the quota was based onlimited infrastructure.
Nghiasaid although the infrastructure of Tan Son Nhat International Airport wasoverburdened, the civil aviation authority had given carriers licences tooperate more flights.
Itis estimated that the airport has received 32 million passengers since earlythis year, while the annual target was just 25 million.
Thecivil aviation agency had been asked to tighten the issue of licences for additionalflights, he said.
Thanhsaid that to meet travel demand during the Lunar New Year 2017 season, thecarriers planned to run an additional 1,285 flights, nearly 30 per cent higherthan normal, including 1,168 flights carrying passengers to the Tan Son NhatInternational Airport.
Theadditional flights would operate between 11pm and 7am, however, jams might getworse at the airport, he said.
Askedif the draft quota would curb the carriers’ growth, Thanh said the draftapplied only until 2020, a short time from now, so it would not affect thecarriers much.
Theaviation sector has been growing by 20 percent per year for several years now,according to the Transport Ministry.
Inrelated news, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh during a December 5 visitto the Noi Bai International Airport, ordered the transport ministry to adjustaviation development plans according to infrastructure capacity, to ensuresustainable growth.-VNA
VNA
