Aviation authority seeks to resume regular flights to Europe

Dinh Viet Thang, head of CAAV, said the agency has been seeking approval from the Ministry of Transport to work with aviation authorities in the four European countries on resuming regular commercial flights as there is huge demand for repatriation during the upcoming Tet holiday among Vietnamese living in Europe.

Statistics from CAAV showed around 140,000 overseas Vietnamese wish to return home to celebrate Tet, which peaks on Feb. 1 and it is forecast the number of passengers flying to Vietnam would exceed 30,000 a week, including foreign experts and diplomats.

Earlier, CAAV worked with aviation officials of Australia to resume regular flights between the two countries with the frequency of 10 return flights a week. Vietnam Airlines starts selling tickets for flights between Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Sydney from Saturday.

After the government approved a two-week first phase of resumption of flights to nine destinations starting Jan. 1, the CAAV granted flight slots for domestic carriers to seven: Bangkok, Phnom Penh, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo.

Currently, flights to Beijing or Guangzhou in China and Vientiane in Laos are yet to resume as relevant aviation authorities remain to complete negotiations.

Fully vaccinated people and those who have recovered from Covid-19 arriving in Vietnam only need to self-isolate for three days.

Everyone, except children below two, must have tested negative for the novel coronavirus using the PCR method within 72 hours before departure.

However, due to the emergence of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19, all passengers are also required to undergo a rapid test on landing at Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat international airports.