400 billion dong more to be ‘pumped’ to Indochina Airlines

The private air carrier Indochina Airlines has announced that it has successfully persuaded its shareholders to pour 400 billion dong more into the airline to resume flights, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV).

The air carrier has also decided to charter two Boeing 737-800 and will resume flights from December 15.

In the report to CAAV, Indochina Airlines wrote that it has amicably arranged with partners and it plans to pay debts step by step prior to 2010. Therefore, the air carrier will resume flights in mid December on Hanoi-HCM City and HCM City-Da Nang City.

As such, with two aircrafts with 165 seats, Indochina Airlines will be capable to provide eight flights per day on Hanoi-HCM City air route.

Deputy Head of CAAV Lai Xuan Thanh said that though it has received the confirmation from Indochina Airlines that the air carrier now have sufficient conditions to continue providing flights and it has asked for continue operation, CAAV will still request Indochina Airlines to give more details about the operation plan. The air carrier will have to report about the methods to ensure the providing of flights and technical issues, and the solutions to the labour force and financial problem settlement.

Prior to that, the air carrier had to cancel the flight schedule for winter it registered before, because it had to give back the chartered aircraft to the foreign partner. Indochina Airlines has stopped providing flights for one month because it still cannot settle financial difficulties and still bear the big debt of over 30 billion dong.

Ha Dung, the owner of the air carrier, who is well known in Vietnam as a musician, in the talks with local press agencies, many times affirmed the determination to resume flights. He said that he will have to continue operation because he does not want to lose the 370 billion dong of investment capital and make 300 workers lose their jobs.

Dung has also affirmed that the sale of brand name and flight freedom of Indochina Airlines to foreign companies will not occur.

Tags: Indochina Airlines, Vietnam aviation