Seats redundant, air tickets deficient for flights from Japan to Vietnam

Many Vietnamese passengers complained that despite having to struggle to get air tickets for flights from Japan to Hanoi, the flights turned out to have idle seats.
Nong Vuong Phi, a Vietnamese passenger, told VnExpress that he was very surprised when realizing that many seats were left idle in his flight on March 16. Phi and another 18 people joined a training course in Japan, which was expected to last from March 7 to March 18. However, due to the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese side agreed to let his group to return to Vietnam three days sooner than planned. All the air tickets for the 19 members were round-trip tickets which were booked before they flew to Japan. Therefore, they had to change the flight schedule.
“We were very happy when we heard that Vietnam Airlines would use big aircrafts in order to increase the freight and help carry more Vietnamese people to Vietnam. It was really good news for us because in such a context, we all wanted to return home as soon as possible,” Phi said.
However, it proved difficult to change the flight schedule. Phi and his colleagues had to ask for support from Vietnam. The booking agent that they contacted tried to help them, but they were told that tickets were very scarce. At first the booking agent only offered seven tickets. Later, by March 16, the agent said it had 14 economy class tickets and four business class tickets. Luckily, just before the departure time, the 19th person also got a ticket for the same flight.
The group took the flight VN953 which departed at 7 pm local time and planned to land in Vietnam at 2.15 am of March 17. However, when they got in the aircraft, they were surprised to discover that only 2/3 of seats were occupied, while the other 1/3 were left idle.
“We could not understand why we had a struggle to book tickets, and why we had to book business class tickets, while economy class seats were still left idle,” Phi said.
The booking agents that VnEpxress contacted all said that due to the high number of Vietnamese people who want to fly to Vietnam from Japan at present, air tickets for the flights are seriously lacking. Vietnam Airlines has announced 50 percent reductions in fares for flights from Japan to Vietnam. However, it is not easy to get such tickets with the discount, because nearly all the tickets have been fully booked.
Meanwhile, Phi feels dissatisfied with the explanations. “Has Vietnam Airlines been trying its best to serve passengers? Does it need to change the way of managing its booking agents?” he questioned.
Meanwhile, a representative of the national flag air carrier has confirmed that it is really difficult to book tickets for the flights these days because there are too many Vietnamese people who want to return to Vietnam. It is estimated that there are 10,000 Vietnamese living in Tokyo and nearby areas, while every flight of Vietnam Airlines can carry 300 passengers at maximum.
Explaining the high percentage of idle seats, the representative said it is may be because passengers could not come to the airport. In general, Japanese passengers account for 80-90 percent of the total passengers in flights from Japan to Vietnam. Meanwhile, the earthquake has made houses collapse, has interrupted the communication system and has made traffic stagnant. This made many passengers unable to reach to the airport, even though they had tickets for flights. It might happen that passengers changed their flight plan but they could not or they did not want to inform to the air carrier, or they could not take any means of transport to reach the airport. Another scenario was that some passengers lived in the earthquake stricken area, and might have been missed.
The representative has confirmed that it is quite common for passengers to miss flights. “We once witnessed the number of passengers missing a flight reaching 140,” he said. “A lot of passengers have canceled flights from both points, Vietnam and Japan”.