Trinh Van Quyet, president of FLC Group, a real estate developer and multi-filed investment group, said: “Aviation and tourism are twin brothers." That is why his Bamboo Airways is trying to connect air passengers with accommodation facilities.

The aviation market is witnessing a race to become the sixth airline in Vietnam, with Vinpearl Air (Vingroup), Vietravel Air (Vietravel) and Kite Air (Thien Minh) vying for licenses.

All three have applied for licenses with a hope of providing commercial flights right in 2020. The common thing of the three airlines is that they have experience in tourism development.

Vingroup has the largest network of resorts and entertainment centers in Vietnam with 43 facilities and 17,000 rooms.

Its Vinpearl Air has the largest investment capital (VND4.7 trillion). With the advantage, the enterprise hopes it would operate 36 aircrafts by 2025 on the flight network comprising 62 domestic routes and 93 international ones.

Aviation combined with tourism is not only the strategy being pursued by the three candidates queuing up for flight licenses, but also the purpose of existing airlines.

As for Thien Minh, except for travel, hotel and resort brands, the group also owns Hai Au Aviation JSC. This is the first seaplane service provider in Vietnam. It now provides services for sightseeing in Ha Long, Hue, Da Nang and provides chartered flights.

Meanwhile, Vietravel has 20 years of experience in travel service. The travel firm wants to set up an airline which mostly serves its clients under the mode of chartered flights. Vietravel affirmed that it has a large and stable number of clients for its flights, hoping that it can serve 1 million passengers a year.

The airline-tourism model has helped Vietnam’s aviation and tourism industries have more diversified products.

After offering 8-13 seat special aircraft service to take guests to the resort since early November, Six Senses Con Dao has become the first resort in Vietnam to offer this product. This is a combination of Six Senses Con Dao and Vietstar Airlines.

Con Dao Island is also the destination in the service provided by VNH South. The company provides four return flights a week with the departure at Vung Tau Airport, commencing from late April. The move marks the shift to the aviation-travel market by an enterprise which previously provided flights to serve the oil and gas exploration and exploitation.

The Vietnam Helicopter Corporation, a colleague of VNH South, has also joined hands with FastGo to provide helicopter sharing services to sightsee Ha Long Bay and Red River through the e-hailing app. Resorts and hotels also rush to cooperate with airlines to sell combo tours which include air tickets, accommodations and entertainment services at reasonable costs.

Kim Chi 

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