Airlines animatedly opening new air routes

Anticipating the increasing demand in the time to come, when the aviation market recovers from the crisis, airlines have rushed to open new air routes and offer sales promotion campaigns.
Just within three months, the national flag air carrier Vietnam Airlines announced the opening of eight domestic and international air routes, a two fold increase over the same period of the last year. Besides, the air carrier has also resumed the air routes, which were closed before, in order to satisfy the increasingly high demand of passengers.
Most recently, Vietnam Airlines has announced the opening of the Hanoi- Gao Xiong, the second biggest city, located in the south of Taiwan with the population of 1.51 million people, from June 17, 2011. The air carrier will provide three flights a week on its fourth direct route to Taiwan with Airbus 312s. The flights will depart at 6.30 pm in Hanoi and at 7.35 am local time and take 2.30 hours to reach the destinations.
In a plan to expand the flight network, the air carrier has signed a series of credit contracts worth multi-million dollars to purchase aircrafts and engines. Vietnam Airline’s General Director, Pham Ngoc Minh said that in the aviation transportation, safety must be put as the top priority. Therefore, the aircraft purchase deals are very necessary to ensure high quality flights.
On May 23, three international banks namely Citi, HSBC and DBS, signed an agreement with Vietnam Airlines on the loan worth 475 million dollars to Vietnam Airlines to fund the air carrier’s purchase of eight Airbus 321-231.
Under the agreement, Vietnam Airlines will borrow 400 million dollars from HSBC and City with the guarantee of the European credit institution. Meanwhile, the sum of 57 million dollars will be borrowed from HSBC and DBS under normal commercial contracts.
Prior to that, in 2007-2009, Vietnam Airlines signed the agreements on purchasing 26 Airbus 321-231 with French Airbus to expand the fleet.
Just several days ago, Vietnam Airlines signed a contract on borrowing seven million dollars from Ocean Bank which will support the air carrier’s plan to buy provisioning engine for Airbust A321. This will be V2533-A5 provided by IAE (International Aero Engine AG) with the delivery in May 2011.
VnExpress has quoted its source as saying “that when some countries are facing crisis and have to sell equipments and machines at low prices, Vietnam Airlines has been trying to take full advantage of the opportunity to purchase aircrafts to serve the plan to open more air routes.”
Vietnam Airlines plans to open direct air routes from Hanoi and HCM City to the UK. Besides, it is also moving ahead with the plan to open direct air routes to the US.
According to Dien dan doanh nghiep, Vietnam Airlines is running 80 air routes to 20 domestic destinations and 26 foreign destinations with 300 flights provided every day. The airline plans to expand the fleet to 115 aircraft by 2015 and 170 by 2020, which will mostly comprise of Boeing 777, Airbus A330, A321/320s/A350XWB, Boeing 787-9.
Another airline, Air Mekong, has announced the opening of four domestic air routes, departing from Hanoi or HCM City to Phu Quoc island, Con Dao island, Quy Nhon and Pleiku over the last two months, even though Air Mekong is considered too young, because it joined the market one year ago.
By opening new air routes, Air Mekong also aims to increase its market share as soon as possible, when the market still has room for it. To date, Air Mekong provides flights on 15 domestic air routes. It has set up an ambitious plan on having 10 new aircraft in 2011, 14 more in 2012, 18 in 2013, and another 20 in 2014.
Jetstar Pacific remains the only airline which has not opened new air routes so far this year. However, it has resumed the Hanoi-Nha Trang air route in a trial basis. After five months of developing the air route, the air carrier will consider the operation of the air route in October to decide whether to provide flights on the route for long term.
Dau tu has quoted its sources as saying that Jetstar Pacific will purchase more Airbut 320 to have a fleet of 15 aircraft by 2014.
According to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam CAAV, in 2011, Vietnamese air carriers will serve 17.5 million passengers, an increase of 21 percent over 2010. CAAV also said that the opening of new air routes is considered the wise move to prepare for the aviation market to recover in the time to come.