VietNamNet Bridge – The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has asked the Ministry of Transport to grant Kenya Airways the fifth freedom traffic rights to take new passengers from China’s Guangzhou for its Nairobi-Hanoi flights to reduce losses as requested by the African carrier.

In its recent report sent to the CAAV, the airline said after four months of flying between Hanoi and Kenya’s capital Nairobi, it has suffered huge losses as average seating occupancy is only 50%.

As most passengers on the flights travel between Nairobi and Guangzhou (China), the airline suggested Vietnamese authorities permit it to operate Hanoi-Guangzhou flights in line with the fifth freedom traffic rights.

The fifth freedom traffic rights allow carriers to operate long-haul flights with a stopover outside the two countries as it is where they can disembark their passengers and take new guests on board their planes before they perform non-stop services.

According to CAAV, given the poor performance of Kenya Airways flights on the Nairobi-Hanoi route and the devaluation of the yuan, the airline can only maintain the route if it is allowed to extend the service to Guangzhou to serve Chinese customers. Otherwise, the carrier will have to suspend its flights to Hanoi as LOT Polish Airlines of Poland and Finnair of Finland did before.

Kenya Airways became the first African airline to conduct direct flights to Vietnam after it launched the Nairobi-Hanoi route on March 31 with three flights per week using Boeing 787-800 aircraft.

The airline sells round-trip tickets for its Nairobi-Hanoi flights from over VND15 million (US$667.3) for economy-class seats and nearly VND51 million for business-class seats.