~ Le Vięt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Continental opens sales offices in Vietnam

HANOI — Continental Airlines, the world's seventh largest carrier, has opened its first sales office in Vietnam ahead of an expected formal codeshare agreement with Vietnam Airlines. Continental announced Wednesday that Traveland Joint Stock Company had formally begun Monday acting as its sales agent in the communist nation.

The American carrier said it wanted to tap the growing numbers of ethnic Vietnamese traveling to and from the United States. "The U.S. is a huge market with more than one million former Vietnamese residing in the United States and overseas Vietnamese have begun travelling back to their homeland," it said in a statement.

In 2002, 280,000 passengers traveled between the United States and Vietnam, 75% of whom were Vietnamese-Americans, according to Vietnam Airlines. The start of Continental's sales operations here follows January's signing of a landmark U.S.-Vietnam aviation agreement that allows direct flights between the two countries for the first time since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

Although the five-year pact only permits two U.S. passenger airlines to fly to Vietnam for the first two years, there are no limits on the number of American carriers operating codeshare arrangements with non-U.S. airlines. Continental has more than 2,200 daily departures to 127 domestic and 96 international destinations, with major hubs in Houston, Cleveland and Guam.

Its U.S. rivals United Airlines and American Airlines already have a presence in Vietnam. American Airlines, the world's largest carrier, opened its offices last month and it is the only U.S. carrier to have so far lodged an application with the U.S. government to begin codeshare flights with Vietnam Airlines.

Robert Sturgell, deputy head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), said last month in Hanoi that Continental and United were also expected to apply. However, the U.S. carriers cannot put their flag on Vietnam Airlines aircraft until the FAA has conducted a safety inspection of Vietnam's aviation operations. This could start within a few months, according to Sturgell.

For the moment, American carriers can offer services through a third airline that runs flights on behalf of Vietnam Airlines in its own codeshare deal. The formal commencement of air links will be another significant step in the full normalization of relations between Washington and Hanoi, who only established diplomatic ties in 1995, two decades after the war ended.

Agence France Presse - March 3, 2004