Flagship carrier Vietnam Airlines has announced that it was able to maintain growth in the first half of the year despite the ‘one-two punch’ dealt by the global economic recession and A/H1N1 flu.

The national carrier conducted almost 32,320 safe flights, carrying nearly 4.5 million passengers, including 1.6 million foreigners, a year-on-year rise of 0.6 percent.

The seat occupancy rate for the reviewed period was around 72.5 percent and total revenues reached more than 11.3 trillion VND.

Along with the Government’s assistance and the recovery of the national economy, the corporation has taken a number of measures to prevent its decline such as maintaining its scale of operations and its flight schedule and raising the quality of its service on both domestic and international routes.

In contrast to a number of foreign aviation firms that have had to pare down their operations, their staff and their overhead due to the ongoing financial crisis, Vietnam Airlines has opened three more domestic routes and kept all its employees on the payroll without cutting either salaries or bonuses.

Apart from promoting Vietnam ’s image abroad, the airline has implemented a new passenger service system, an online payment service as well as consolidating joint venture cooperation.

In April, Vietnam Airlines signed an agreement to enter SkyTeam, the world’s second largest airline alliance, in order to make preparations to become an official member in June 2010.

To increase its competitiveness and modernise its fleet, last month, Vietnam Airlines signed a contract to purchase 16 A-321 aircraft and a memorandum of understanding on an order for two A-350 XWBs from Airbus.

Early this month, the airline conducted direct flights on four new routes and adjusted flight paths for the Tan Son Nhat Airport in order to reduce flying time on nine routes by 4 to 10 minutes per route.

In addition, the corporation saved between 6-7 million USD on fuel costs in the first six months of the year, and continues to regard fuel saving as a critical task for the remaining months of the year.

Vietnam Airlines has set out to transport around 9.4 million passengers and attain a turnover of around 24 trillion VND this year.

The corporation is currently using 52 planes for 19 domestic and 23 international routes./.