Vietnam Airlines to sell 27 planes

“Vietnam Airlines plans to sell nine A321s and six ATR-72s in December. From 2022 to late 2023, an additional 12 A321s will be sold,” CEO Le Hong Ha told the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders Tuesday.

The plan is aimed at reducing the number of aircraft Vietnam currently owns and accelerating its fleet modernization, replacing planes aged over 12 years, he explained, predicting that there would still be an aircraft surplus by 2025.

Vietnam Airlines is estimated to have an excess of eight wide-body planes and 22 narrow-body equivalents next year. It currently has 106 aircraft, including 29 wide-body planes, and seven ATR-72s. It has sold two A321s in the last five months.

With the civil aviation industry hard hit by Covid-19, Vietnam Airlines has removed seats from eight wide-body passenger planes and seven A321s to use as cargo- aircraft.

The national flag carrier recorded a net loss of over VND3.5 trillion ($154.3 million) in the third quarter, a decrease compared to the first two quarters.

As of September, the airlines’s total assets were valued at more than VND67 trillion, up more than VND4.5 trillion over the beginning of the year.

Vietnam’s domestic aviation market in 2022 will be 70-75 percent of that in 2019, before the pandemic’s onset, and fully recover in 2023, he predicted.