The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam has also been tasked with proposing a specific time frame for resuming the flights on a bilateral basis to restore trade and investment activities and revive the tourism industry while ensuring strict maintenance of anti-pandemic measures.

The administration will have to submit its report by June 10 for submission to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Vietnam has suspended international flights since March 25 and banned entry of foreign nationals since March 22 except for special cases. It has also granted permission for some special flights to repatriate Vietnamese citizens stranded abroad.

The transport ministry estimates Vietnam’s aviation industry to deal with 43 million passengers this year, down 46 percent from last year. This is a doubling of the worst-case-scenario forecast that the ministry had made in February, which was a 23 percent drop to 61 million passengers./.

VNA