Air passengers surge during Tet festival

The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines reported that it served a maximum of 65,000 passengers from and to Hanoi’s Noi Bai international airport and Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat international airport a day. Meanwhile, low-cost Jetstar Pacific transported 7,500 passengers per day on average from the south to the north.

To meet the increasing travel demand during Tet holiday, the two firms added seven flights (nearly 1,300 seats) between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi from February 12-14, the 27th and 28th days of the last lunar month.

The on-time performance (OTP) rates of Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar Pacific were reported high in the days ahead of the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival, representatives from the two firms said on February 14. 

Accordingly, from February 8-13, Vietnam Airlines operated nearly 440 flights a day, 90 percent of which was on-time. 

Meanwhile, Jetstar Pacific served 30,000 passengers on 156 flights from the Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. Only several flights were delayed for 29 minutes on average due to objective reasons.

A representative from low-cost Vietjet Air announced on February 15 that the carrier has received a wet lease aircraft, Airbus A320, to serve the travel of Vietnamese people and foreigners during the Lunar New Year festival.

From January 31 to March 2, Vietjet Air has organised nearly 6,700 flights with nearly 1.4 million seats.