Returning to Hanoi from a 4-day trip to Da Nang, Phan Hoai Thanh in Ba Dinh district, felt sluggish and tired. To save money, Thanh and her friends had chosen to fly from Hanoi to Da Nang late on Wednesday and return at night on Sunday.

“We still went to work on Wednesday and we departed after rush hour. We landed in Da Nang Airport at midnight the next morning,” she said.

“We went to a guest house in Da Nang and planned to get up early the next morning to go to the beach, watch the sun rise and enjoy coffee before we checked in the resort we booked before. However, our plan failed. As we still had to work before the departure, we could only get up at noon on the next day,” she recalled, adding that they wasted a whole morning just to sleep.

When the holiday finished, they had to check out at 12 pm. However, as they brought heavy luggage and many souvenirs, they had to hire a room to put these things, and then took a taxi to have lunch, shop and dine before leaving Da Nang.

“At 10 pm, we were still at the Da Nang Airport waiting. All of us got tired,” she said.

Their trip, despite the cheap air tickets, turned out to be more expensive than they thought. They saved VND800,000 for each airfare, but they had to spend money to rent a room to stay overnight. 

They just had two hours to have a nap before leaving for work again.

“We regret booking cheap tickets. The trip turned out to be tiring,” Thanh said.

Nguyen Thi Tho, a booking agent in Hanoi, said summer is the high travel season and many passengers ask her about domestic night flights to HCM City, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Phu Quoc and Da Lat. When giving advice, she warns them of the inconvenience they may face with night flights.

“For families with older people and children, I advise them not to fly at night. Many passengers have complained that traveling at night is tiring and costly,” she said.

“The situation will be even worse if flights are delayed. If so, older people will feel tired, while small children will be restless,” she said.

According to Tho, night flights are mostly reserved for independent travelers, especially young people who want to save money, or those who have a lot of time for holidays.

Return air tickets for night flights from June 27 to June 30 are cheaper by 20-40 percent than day flights, but very few seats are left on certain routes.

Passengers have to pay VND3 million for a return ticket to fly from Hanoi to HCM City with Vietjet Air at night (10.45pm to 1.20am the next day), or VND400,000 lower than airfares for day flights. 

Vietnam Airlines’ passengers have to pay VND2.8 million on Hanoi – Da Nang route (departing at 8pm and returning at 0.30-1.30 am), saving VND800,000 compared with day flights.

According to travel firms, arranging night flights shows the great effort of air carriers in giving more choices to passengers, but this is not a perfect solution for the tourism industry. Taking a night flight is not advisable for the majority of passengers.

A survey by Best Price found that in the high travel season of summer, passengers have more interest in night flights, but the increase is not sharp.

“Night flights are just considered a subordinate option, but they are not favored by passengers because more expense items arise, such as meals and drinks, and safety problems,” said Bui Thanh Tu, marketing director of Best price.

The senior executive affirmed that night flights would be more helpful if air carriers  cooperate with hotels and travel firms to design products that can balance the benefits for involved parties, while not creating inconvenience for passengers.

Some hotels have flexible check-in/out policies, and if guests receive rooms at night, they just have to pay half of the quoted hotel room rates. However, the policy is being applied by only a few hotels.

Luu Thi Thu, deputy director of Hoang Viet Travel, said her firm doesn’t provide domestic summer tours with night flights unless clients place specific orders.

Ngoc Ha