New flights will open up new development opportunities for not just the tourism industry. Photo: H. Hai
If things progress smoothly as they have been planned, Vietravel Airlines will become the 6th carrier of Vietnam, after Vietnam Airlines, Vasco, Jetstar Pacific, Vietjet Airlines and Bamboo Airways.
Preliminary information reveals that Vietravel Airlines will deploy an initial investment of about 1,000 billion VND and locate its headquarter in Phu Bai International Airport. Presently, Vietravel has been working hard on every front so that its very first aircrafts could take off on 01st January 2020.
In return, by the end of April 2019, Thua Thien Hue province had played its role by handing over 44,52 out of 45,94 hectares of land to the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam and the Airports Corporation of Vietnam for the project on expanding Phu Bai International Airport.
The project, targeting to enable the airport to serve up to 5 million passengers per year (4 million from Vietnam and 1 million from abroad) upon its completion, is fueled with an estimated investment of 2,200 billion VND. It includes two main components: the expansion of the landing area and the construction of a two-story Terminal 2, covering an area of 16,000 square meters, with separate departure and arrival lounges linked by elevated roads and supplementary facilities such as entrance and exit ways, carpark, lighting system, etc.
According to plan, the project will phase in exploitation in the last quarter of 2020. The project is hoped to lift the serving capacity of Phu Bai airport closer to that of a standardized international one.
First and foremost, the project will generate new flights as well as expand the existing domestic routes of Phu Bai, serving as a crucial infrastructure in ridding Hue of a bottleneck that has been hindering the development of tourism and services of the locality. It is foreseen that the airport’s annual passenger flow will reach from 3 to 3.5 million by 2020 and from 6.5 to 7 million by 2025 (compared to only 1.83 million in 2018).
Visitors to Hue through Phu Bai International Airport. Photo: Duc Quang
For Vietravel, starting a new airline could be seen as a bold, but not risky, venture. I still remember Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky, President of the Executive Board and General Director of Vietravel, once shared at Forbes’ Business Forum that the company’s motto is to be always aware of market demands as well as its own needs, and, on that basis, to focus on creating breakthroughs and seizing every opportunity to leap forward.
He also shared that 70% of tourism revenues come from services, while the rest 30% come from tourism companies’ hard assets. Paradoxically, many tourism companies choose to invest into real estate rather than in services.
Perhaps, seeing this discrepancy, Vietravel has identified its own “runway”, thanks to the vision of a competent leader, under whose guidance, the company has managed to weather many storms, making breakthroughs after every crisis.
Vietravel approaches development and co-development from a “go together” mindset. “We always develop collectively and systematically, raising the bar of the whole. We always seek out the best strategies for cooperation and co-development through means of discussion and consultation with companies and partners,” Mr. Ky affirmed.
Vietravel has recently become one of Thua Thien Hue’s strategic partners. Beside laying out its existing network of travel agencies in the locality, for the past two years, Vietravel has also delivered significant support in the province’s major events, provided consultation on shaping and organizing activities for the nightlife walking route of Chu Van An – Pham Ngu Lao – Vo Thi Sau, and cooperated with the province in the “Lighting up the Flag Tower (Kỳ Đài)” project, etc.
It seems that by choosing and accompanying Hue, Vietravel, and not just the company itself, expects to create leverages for the effective operation of the new flights and routes basing on the potentials of both sides.
By Minh Ha