Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi is not as crowded as usual due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus epidemic (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnamese carriers saw significant drops in thenumber of passengers in February due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to statistics from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV),Vietnamese carriers transported a total 3.7 million passengers in February,representing a drop of 13.7 percent against the same month of 2019. The numberof international passengers saw a drop of 39.5 percent to just 870,000, whiledomestic passengers slightly decreased by 0.7 percent to 2.8 million.
With regards to the Chinese market, three Vietnamese carriers – VietnamAirlines, Vietjet and Jetstar Pacific – and Chinese carriers had to cancel 80flights between the two countries per day.
Vietnam Airlines reported that it had to cancel 1,000 flights to/from China inFebruary and the damage was estimated at around 250 billion VND (10.7 millionUSD) each week, adding that it was facing with a lot of difficulties due to theCOVID-19 epidemic. The airline saw severe declines of around 50 percent in bothinternational and domestic passengers and up to 70-80 percent in passengersfrom Northeast Asia.
The CAAV’s statistics also revealed a drop of 11.6 percent in the number ofarrivals and departures at airports to 8.1 million in February. Of the figure,international passengers totalled 2.4 million, decreasing by 29.8 percent.Domestic passengers slightly decreased by 0.7 percent to 5.7 million.
The CAAV said that Vietnam’s aviation market saw two-digit decreases after manyyears of strong growth due to the direct impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.
The CAAV raised three scenarios for the aviation market in 2020.
In the best scenario, in which China announced the end of the epidemic beforeApril, Vietnamese carriers would see a slight increase of 1.1 percent in thenumber of passengers, while the number of passengers received by the airportswould be 119 million.
If the epidemic lasted until June, the respective figures would be a decreaseof 5.7 percent and 111.6 million (down 4.2 percent).
In the worst-case scenario, if the epidemic did not end until August, themarket would see a drop of 17.2 percent in the number of passengers, and thenumber of arrivals and departures through airports would be 98.5 million (down 15.5percent)./.
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Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi is not as crowded as usual due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus epidemic (Photo: VNA) 
