Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang has warned domestic airlines may lose their licenses if they delay and cancel too many flights without good reasons.

Thang made the warning at a meeting with representatives of local airlines on flight delays and cancelations in the first half of this year in Hanoi last week.

Thang said there should be specific regulations in place to reduce flight delays and aborts. “Those airlines with high rates of flight delays and cancellations may have their licenses withdrawn,” Thang said.

Thang told leaders of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) to enhance supervision as the solution to reduce high rates of delayed and canceled flights. He also ordered a comprehensive scheme to be mapped out in July to improve management of the aviation body.  

Thang pointed out that coordination among relevant agencies is poor. Airlines have not worked together well and there are signs of unhealthy competition among them.

To develop a healthy aviation market and protect the interests of air passengers, Thang demanded amendments to the existing inadequacies of civil aviation regulations to prevent flight delays and aborts.

At the meeting, airline representatives pledged to do their utmost to cut the number of delayed and cancelled flights. The two low-cost carriers, VietJetAir and Jetstar Pacific, vowed to halve their delays and cancelations this month and next.

Jetstar Pacific promised to bring down the number of postponed and aborted flights to 5% in November this year.

Statistics from CAAV showed Vietnamese airlines conducted 74,000 flights in the first half of this year. Of which, the number of delayed and canceled flights accounted for nearly 21% and 3.2%, up 5.2 and 0.5 percentage points respectively over the same period last year.

In the period, the rates of the flights with departures being at least 15 minutes behind schedule were 10.2% for Vasco, 12.3% for Vietnam Airlines, 40.2% for Jetstar Pacific and 40.4% for VietJetAir, according to CAAV. 

There are four domestic airlines operational in Vietnam, namely Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar Pacific, Vasco and VietJetAir. In addition, nearly 50 foreign carriers operate flights to and from Vietnam.

In the January-June period, the airports in Vietnam handled 24.7 million passengers and 448,000 tons of cargo, up 15% and 22% respectively compared to the year-earlier period.