The Ministry of Transport has stressed there is no legal basis to prevent AirAsia’s low-cost airline group AirAsia from investing in the local airline VietJet Air despite protest from the local flagship carrier Vietnam Airlines.
“Vietnam’s existing regulations do not permit State entities to bar foreign investment (of AirAsia in VietJet Air) as proposed by Vietnam Airlines Corp.,” the ministry said in a recent report submitted to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. The ministry also throws its support behind budget carrier development in Vietnam. Vị trí đặt quảng cáo
The ministry made the report as ordered by Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai after Vietnam Airlines appealed to the Prime Minister not to approve AirAsia’s investment in VietJet Air in any form to set up a low-cost airline venture VietJet AirAsia in Vietnam.
Vietnam Airlines lodged the request to the Prime Minister in early March, or less than one month after the Malaysian-headquartered group AirAsia announced its acquisition of a 30% stake in the first private airline licensed in Vietnam.
However, the ministry clarified that Vietnam’s laws including the Enterprise Law, the Investment Law, the Civil Aviation Law as well as Government Decree 76/2007/ND-CP allowed foreign companies in and outside the aviation sector to invest in local airlines.
Current regulations set a 30% cap on foreign ownership by a single investor and the 49% limit on total foreign investment in a local airline. So, the AirAsia stake purchase at VietJet Air is legally accepted as confirmed by the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) and the transport ministry now.
The ministry referred to Qantas which had been approved to invest in Vietnam’s aviation market. This Australian airline group holds a 27% stake in Jetstar Pacific and has the right to increase its ownership in the Vietnamese budget carrier to 30%.
Support for budget carriers Vietnam Airlines claimed the entry into Vietnam by many budget carriers to cash in on the domestic flight segment would seriously affect the existence and development of new local airlines and directly impact the development strategy of Vietnam Airlines.
The ministry did not think so, however, saying that the expansion of budget carriers was a reality of the global aviation industry.
It said budget carriers were established to offer lower-priced services than those of traditional airlines thanks to their operational cost reduction. Meanwhile, budget carriers must comply with all safety aviation regulations as the full-serviced airlines do, and State agencies strictly supervise their practices to prevent violations.
VietJet Air will adopt the low-cost operation of AirAsia, but its name and charter capital remain unchanged, the ministry said. The only major change is a 30% stake in this carrier was transferred from former shareholder Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao to AirAsia.
The stake transfer paves the way for the VND600-billion carrier VietJet Air to make its dream of flying within Vietnam and then overseas a reality. After this the announcement of this deal, VietJet Air disclosed the first commercial passenger flight in May or later this year, and said that it would lease three Airbus A320s.
Airline experts said the demand for reasonably-priced air services among Vietnamese people was huge, as local carriers currently catered to only 10 million passengers a year in this market of some 86 million people. They said the demand for low-cost air services in Vietnam outstripped the demand for traditional carriers as the price usually mattered most.
In 2009, Vietnam Airlines reported to transport nearly 6.2 million passengers on domestic flights, up 17.6% over 2008 while Jetstar Pacific registered a year-on-year increase of 30% to more than two million passengers on its domestic flights.
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