HCMC – The Ministry of Transport decided to reopen two more domestic air routes, Hanoi-Dien Bien and HCMC-Ca Mau, with one daily flight on each route from October 13.
With the two latest routes, the ministry has resumed 21 domestic routes to date, with a total of 42 scheduled flights operated on a trial basis until October 20, reported VnExpress.
After the pilot period, the ministry will review and propose appropriate adjustments to the flight schedules in the next phases to the Government.
To be eligible to fly, passengers must be fully vaccinated against Covid or have recovered from the disease within six months before departure and must have certificates of a negative test result taken 72 hours before departure. They must also make health declarations and commit to complying with anti-Covid measures.
Passengers should refrain from going to crowded places after their flights and should self-monitor their health or self-quarantine at home for at least seven days.
After air services on 19 domestic routes were resumed from October 10, the travel demand from passengers departing from HCMC to other localities remained relatively high, while the demand on the return leg of the flights was extremely low, prompting local carriers to cancel many scheduled flights due to insufficient operation costs.
Another reason behind the flight cancelations is that local airlines are required to use 50% of their seats for social distancing on planes, resulting in a hike in airfares. Commented on this issue, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has proposed lifting the social distancing mandate between seats after the pilot period.
