13 percent of Vietnamese flights cancelled, delayed in Q1: report

By Dy Khoa   April 11, 2018 | 09:32 pm PT
13 percent of Vietnamese flights cancelled, delayed in Q1: report
A Vietnam Airlines aircraft next to a Jetstar Pacific aircraft at Hanoi's Noi Bai international airport. Photo by AFP
Late arrivals have been blamed as the main reason for the rising number of delays compared to last year.

Approximately 10,000 flight cancellations and delays by Vietnamese airlines were recorded in the first three months of 2018, according to a new report released last week by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam.

The figure accounts for 13.5 percent of the total flights operated by the country's four domestic airlines, an increase of 1 percentage point from a year ago.

Among them, Jetstar Pacific registered the worst performance with 21.1 percent of its flights delayed, albeit achieving a significant reduction from 30 percent in the first three months of 2017.

VASCO was credited as the best performer of the quarter, with only 2.3 percent of its flights delayed, while another 2 percent were cancelled.

Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air saw 10 and 16.6 percent of their flights running off schedule respectively. The figures represent 1.4 and 3.9 percent hikes compared to the same period last year.

The report said that late arrivals were the primary cause of delays, as they affected 65.8 percent of Vietnamese flights.

Unfavorable weather and technical difficulties were cited as the main excuse for cancellations, as well as operational and commercial issues.

According to the report, total flight growth rose 10 percent year-on-year. Vietjet Air made the most of the country's air travel boom with a 26.6 percent rise in departures from the first quarter last year.

Flight delays and cancellations have left passengers unsatisfied over the years. In September 2017, the Ministry of Transport ruled that airlines must provide accommodation for passengers if they are delayed by more than six hours.

Vietnam has seen a recent boom in air travel. The country served more than 94 million air passengers in 2017, a 16 percent increase from the previous year.

 
 
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