Vietnam’s overall aviation market returned to double-digit growth in both passenger and cargo segments last year, with cargo shipments surging up to 30% year-on-year, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV).

That was a spectacular cargo transport growth rate given the 2% growth in 2009 when the aviation sector was hard hit by the global financial crisis.

Last year saw domestic and foreign airlines in 2010 transport 460,000 tons of cargo, with the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines accounting for 166,300 tons on its domestic and international flights, a year-on-year upsurge of 43.9%.

Vo Huy Cuong, director of CAAV’s Air Transport Department, told the Daily that the volume of cargo on international flights in and out of Vietnam last year increased 37% from 2009 to 340,000 tons.

As for the passenger segment, Cuong estimated more than 21 million passengers went through the country’s airports in 2010, up around 20% from a year earlier and also much higher than 8.4% in 2009. The number of passengers on international flights last year rose around 20% to 10.7 million.

Cuong said besides the world’s improving demand for air travel and cargo shipments, Vietnam was offering more incentives to encourage local and foreign airlines to increase their frequencies and open new routes. The last quarter of 2010 saw a number of foreign airlines fly in and launch new services to the country, including Turkish Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines and Qatar Airways.

Last year, Vietnam Airlines expanded domestic and international networks significantly, with 11 international and domestic routes launched to push up its daily flights by 95 to 320.

The SkyTeam member airline transported 12.3 million passengers, up 33.7% year-on-year.

CAAV said improved and new facilities at airports also enable domestic carriers to better exploit their aircraft, particularly at night to meet rising demand for air travel and cargo transport. As a result, the domestic segment recorded a rise of nearly 21% in the number of passengers and 23% in cargo volume compared with 2009.

The aviation authority projected the market would grow 16-20% in passenger number and at least 20% in cargo load this year.

Source: SGT