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Trans Air to fly in, Garuda to suspend service The Vietnamese aviation market receives both good and bad news this month when Taiwan-based Trans Air will launch flights between Taipei and Vietnam's central coastal city of Danang from next month while Indonesia's Garuda will suspend services to HCMC today, November 25.
Vo Huy Cuong, director of CAAV's Air Transport Department, told the Daily on the phone that Trans Air would become the second foreign airline active at Danang International Airport. Currently, Silk Air of Singapore operates three flights a week to this city. Meanwhile, Thai AirAsia will also launch its direct daily flight between HCMC and Phuket of Thailand from December 3 in an effort to deepen its presence in Vietnam, a market the member airline of AirAsia Group now has daily services from Bangkok to Hanoi and HCMC. However, the impact of global financial tsunami and the declining number of inbound travelers are adversely affecting certain foreign airlines' plans for the Vietnamese market. A typical case is that Garuda Indonesia will call off its daily service to HCMC from today. Syamsul Adnan, general manager of Garuda Indonesia in Vietnam, attributed the service suspension to the low yield on the Jakarta-Singapore-HCMC route for the time being. Adnan told the Daily on the phone on Monday that the average yield of the route stood at only eight U.S. cents per kilometer per available seat, or four U.S. cents lower than that of the flights between Indonesia's capital of Jakarta and the renowned resort destination Bali. "We suspend the aircraft (for the flight to and from HCMC) because we have higher demand in the domestic market. So, we are using the aircraft for the domestic sector," Adnan said. Piercer competition on the route, especially the HCMC-Jakarta section, has sent seat occupancy down. Adnan said the average load factor of Garuda Indonesia's flights to and from Vietnam was 68% from January to October this year. What matters most is the sharp fall in airfares. Adnan said the normal lowest return airfare for the HCMC-Singapore trip was around US$200 but Garuda Indonesia had to sell for only US$80. This is different from Indonesia where the carrier does not have to promote airfares. There are currently around 70 weekly flights between HCMC and Singapore, a route which is also jointly exploited by other carriers including Vietnam Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Tiger Airways and Lion Air. Adnan said Garuda Indonesia would stop the flights using the Boeing B737-800 aircraft to HCMC until further notice, not until December 31 as reported by several print and online publications. "We will consider flying back to HCMC when the global market gets stabilized," he said. Adnan expected Garuda Indonesia would be able to resume the service to HCMC in 2010 when the airline received more aircraft from the manufacturer Boeing. Adnan said how Garuda Indonesia pressed ahead with its plan to launch direct service between Jakarta and HCMC as announced earlier this year would depend on the recovery of the market. This route is currently operated by the low-cost carrier Indonesia AirAsia. According to the Vietnam National Administration of Vietnam (VNAT), the country welcomed just more than three million international visitors in the first 10 months of this year, down 16.3% over the same period last year. The number of international travelers entering Vietnam through airports in the period dropped 13.6% year-on-year to more than 2.4 million. VietNamNet/SGT Other news for Monday 30 November, 2009
View all news for Monday 30 November, 2009 on one page News for Saturday 28 November, 2009 View all news for Saturday 28 November, 2009 on one page Recent News
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