Airlines buying planes for more int’l flights

Vietravel Airlines, the youngest carrier in Vietnam, said it will receive three aircraft in the next quarter of this year to launch more international routes.

The airline currently operates two routes between Hanoi/Ho Chi Minh City and Thailand’s Bangkok, and between Khanh Hoa Province’s Cam Ranh and South Korea’s Daegu.

Bamboo Airways said it will obtain 6-8 planes from now through the end of the year, and an additional 10 planes in the 2024-2025 period.

Vietjet Air will also receive 10 new planes this year, including three Airbus A321 ACFs this week, increasing its total to 87 by the year’s end while opening new routes to India, Japan and South Korea.

Vietjet, which currently has 77 aircraft, including 5s A330s, 54 A321s and 18 A320s, operates over 100 domestic and international routes.

Earlier this year, the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam asked the Ministry of Transport to allow domestic carriers to increase the size of their fleets to meet the market’s recovery needs.

As of January, six domestic airlines were using 225 aircraft, nine less than the pre-pandemic level in early 2020.

According to the administration, an average aircraft transports 250,000 passengers per year.

With the domestic market forecast to reach 45.5 million passengers in 2023, the number of aircraft serving the domestic market alone is only 182.

And to serve 13.6 million international passengers this year, airlines need 57 more planes.

So analysts say that the total number of domestic airlines’ aircraft should increase to 230 in the first months of this year, and to 250 by the end of the year.