1,800 night flights to be operated during Lunar New Year holiday

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) issued a document allowing night flights during the Tet holiday, and asked carriers to take actions to minimize flight delays and cancellations, and to intensify control to ensure aviation safety.

Local airports, especially the Dong Hoi, Phu Cat, Chu Lai, Tuy Hoa, Tho Xuan, Vinh, and Pleiku, were urged to develop specific plans and measures to ensure the capacity to provide services during the holiday and ensure sufficient resources, equipment and infrastructure facilities to serve flights following airline’s operation plans.

Domestic airlines are requested to proactively and timely provide accurate information about their demand for operating night flights to aviation service providers to ensure the quality of air services.

Bamboo Airways said it has just added one more Airbus A320 aircraft to its fleet. As planned, another will be added to the firm’s fleet from the middle of January.

It plans to increase its capacity by over 20% during peak times, focusing on increasing the frequency of flights on major routes such as Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City, between Hanoi/HCMC and Da Nang, and those with high demand such as HCMC – Vinh/Thanh Hoa/Hai Phong. Additionally, the airline will also increase night flights on the routes connecting HCMC with Hanoi, Vinh, and Da Nang.

Similarly, Vietjet has also added four more aircraft to its fleet, lifting the total aircraft of the firm to 103.

The CAAV has estimated that the domestic air carriers will operate about 33,800 flights during the Lunar New Year holiday, up 14% year-on-year and 21% as compared with normal days.

There will be some 24,200 domestic flights, representing an increase of 2% from the same period last year; and 9,600 international flights, up 60% year-on-year.

The busiest routes include Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City, HCMC-Da Nang/Vinh/Dong Hoi/Quy Nhon/Chu Lai/Thanh Hoa/Hue/Tuy Hoa, and Can Tho-Vinh, and vice versa.

The airlines expect to fly 7.2 million passengers during Tet, the biggest holiday in the year in Vietnam, of them more than 5 million domestic ones, up 4% year-on-year.