An estimated 4.1 million passengers are forecast to go through  Tan Son Nhat international airport in Ho Chi Minh City during the 2018 Lunar New Year (Tet) festival, up 25 percent from the 2017 Tet.

Passengers wait to check in at Tan Son Nhat airport’s domestic terminal just before Tet last year. 

There will be nearly 26,300 take-offs and landings, up by 20 percent from the 2017 Tet occasion, according to the Southern Air Authority.

Carriers had plans to increase their flights by 10-15 percent from the 2017 Tet to meet the travel demands during the country’s biggest festival.

Airlines, by December 26, had registered to increase nearly 3,000 flights and 582,000 seats on 22 routes from and to 18 domestic airports for the Tet Holiday.

Flight routes with additional flights and seats include Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport to Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat Airport (790 flights/158,000 seats), Tan Son Nhat Airport to Thua Thien - Hue province’s Phu Bai Airport (335 flights/67,000 seats), Tan Son Nhat Airport to Khanh Hoa province’s Cam Ranh Airport (324 flights/66,000 seats) and Tan Son Nhat Airport to Da Nang Airport (262 flights/51,000 seats), as well as Tan Son Nhat Airport to Nghe An province’s Vinh Airport (185 flights/36,000 seats) and Tan Son Nhat Airport to Thanh Hoa province’s Tho Xuan Airport (182 flights/37,000 seats).

Earlier, Deputy Minister of Transport Le Dinh Tho urged the aviation industry and relevant state bodies to work to minimize flight delays and cancellations during the Tet holiday.

According to Bui Minh Dang, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam’s transport division, the aviation industry saw a significant growth of around 19-20 percent in 2017. It served about 62 million passengers in 2017, an increase of 19 percent from 2016.

In 2017, the average On-time Performance (OTP) of airlines was estimated at 87.7 percent, higher than the global average of 75-79 percent. Most of delays and cancellations have occurred due to severe weather like storms or mist or during public holidays.-VNA