VietNamNet Bridge - From a small airline with only three aircraft in 2011, Vietjet Air has become a big low-cost air carrier (LCC) with annual revenue of VND50 trillion.

Vietjet owner Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao’s development of the biggest LCC in Vietnam has been used as an example of emerging market development in classes at Harvard’s business school. 

Vietjet Air has made big leaps in the last seven years. The first images of Vietjet Air, with stewardesses in bikinis, once stirred controversy and raised curiosity in the international press. This gave a push for the first private Vietnamese airline to take off.

Vietjet Air’s revenue began soaring in 2014, reaching VND8.699 trillion, a growth rate of 129 percent compared to 2013. The high growth rate was repeated once again in 2015 with impressive revenue of VND19.845 trillion.

In 2016 and 2017, its revenue growth rates were 38.5 and 53.8 percent, respectively. The big achievements gave Vietjet Air reasons to set a revenue target of VND50.97 trillion in 2018.

There are no official statistics about air carriers’ market share. However, some financial institutions believe that Vietjet outstripped the national flag air carrier Vietnam Airline in market share in 2018. 

According to Bao Viet Securities, Vietjet now holds 42 percent of market share, and the figure is still rising.

Before Vietjet joined the market, only 1 percent of Vietnamese could approach air travel, while air tickets were expensive and reserved only for the well-off. 

To serve the hot development, Vietjet has ordered hundreds of aircraft, both Airbus and Boeing. It has 61 A320s and A321s, both chartered and owned, a high number for a young airline, according to Planespotter. 

The number of airplanes increased from 3 in 2011 to 61 in 2018.

While Vietjet flies in full swing, it has met with troubles recently. The Ministry of Transport (MOT) has given a ‘strong warning’ to Vietjet for multiple incidents that have threatened flight safety. 

In the last three months, Vietjet had seven incidents, including five technical problems.

Zing.vn quoted Nguyen Thanh Trung, a veteran pilot, as saying that the air carrier is ‘obviously meeting problems’. He said Vietjet needs to examine the quality of pilots, technical systems, and monitoring.

However, Nguyen Thien Tong, an aviation expert, believes there is no link between incidents and hot development. 

“An air carrier with no hot development still has similar troubles,” he said. “It is wrong to think that once development cools down, incidents won’t occur.”

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