Vietnam airlines expands fleet to meet demand
HANOI - Vietnam Airlines will add four new aircraft to its fleet later this year in a bid to meet rising
demand and improve its reputation, Nguyen Si Hung, chairman of the company's management board has revealed.
The four aircraft, two long-haul Boeing 767s and two ATR-72s, will be leased in the fourth quarter of the year, said the
chairman.
"The additions should enable us to meet rising demand for domestic and international routes and help us improve our services, "
said Hung during a meeting with Government officials and journalists in Hanoi last week.
Hung said that complaints from passengers about flight delays and cancellations were one of the main factors behind the
decision. Bad weather was partly to blame for the flight delays and cancellations, but a shortage of aircraft clearly compounded
the problem.
Hung argued that all airlines have such problems and cited American Airlines, which had 48,000 domestic flights delayed in
July, as an example. Bad weather was blamed for 70 per cent of those delayed flights, he said. To restore its reputation,
Vietnam Airlines has also launched public relations campaigns pointing to improvements in their in-flight and on-ground
services.
In the first half of the year, Vietnam Airlines carried 900,000 passengers on domestic routes. This is expected to rise to 1.8
million by the end of the year, representing an eight per cent increase over last year's figures. The numbers of passengers on the
routes from Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to cities such as Da Nang, Hue, Da Lat and Nha Trang rose by 18 per cent while the
figure for other provinces dropped by 17 per cent due to a shortage of small aircraft for domestic routes, Hung said.
Vietnam Airlines carried 1,470,000 passengers on their international flights in the first half of 2000, a year-on-year increase of
nearly 14 per cent. To further boost tourism in the region, Vietnam Airlines will launch the trans-Indochina (Ha
Noi-Vientiane-Phnom Penh- Ho Chi Minh City) route later this year. In addition, the carrier has plans to raise the frequency of
flights on routes linking Viet Nam with Osaka, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur in the third and fourth quarters
of the year.
Anticipating further increases in demand, Vietnam Airlines also plans to add two more Airbus A320s to its fleet next year, said
Hung.
Vietnam News Agency - August 31, 2000.
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