An ATR 72 of Vietnam Airlines had to make an emergency landing at Tolmachevo Airport in the Russian city of Novosibirsk on Wednesday, . . .

Photo: TT

Vietnam Airlines spokesman Le Hoang Dung told the Daily on Wednesday that the incident happened when the old-generation plane was on the way back to the aircraft manufacture ATR as outlined in a plan to swap old planes for new ones.

In August this year, Vietnam Airlines handed over the first of its seven short-haul planes ATR 72-200 to the France-based ATR as part of its agreement with the plane maker to replace old planes by new generation turboprops ATR 72-500.

The airline will deliver back all the ATR 72-200s which have been put into service since 1992 to the plane maker within one year. These old turboprops will be replaced by the new ATR 72-500s that the airline has already ordered.

Vietnam Airlines plans to operate a fleet of 14 ATR 72-500s to be delivered in line with the contracts it already signed with the European aircraft maker.

In June, the carrier secured 10-year loans worth US$120 million from a consortium of HSBC, Credit Suisse and Techcombank to buy six modern ATR 72-500s, and these turboprops will be delivered until February 2010.

Under the agreements, HSBC and Credit Suisse provide an offshore U.S. dollar loan for 85% of the aircraft price while Techcombank covers the remaining 15% by a domestic U.S. dollar loan for Vietnam Airlines.

The airline said the new ATR 72-500s was part of a strategy to modernize its ATR fleet and to operate a fleet of all new generation ATR 72-500s by the end of 2010.

Currently, Vietnam Airlines operates a fleet of more than 50 modern aircraft and will expand its fleet to 104 aircraft by 2015 and 150 by 2020.

VietNamNet/SGT