Traveling by low-cost airline will save your budget.

Reducing the cost of public cars and planes when traveling on business is a concrete solution to save budget.

The fact that Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang issued a document requiring officials and civil servants to travel on low-cost airlines has become a much-discussed story in recent days. Although there are still many complaints about the service quality of low-cost airlines, in difficult economic times, budget revenue is decreasing, reducing the cost of public cars and planes when traveling on business is a specific solution to save the budget.

Both economical and close to people

Never before has low-cost airlines been mentioned as much as they are now, starting with a surprising decision by Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang after his business trip. The head of the transport sector signed an official dispatch requesting that officials and civil servants of the ministry prioritize choosing low-cost airlines when traveling for work. There are also many opinions that this is like an administrative order forcing officials and employees under his authority. However, this is a decision that National Assembly delegates consider effective.

Besides the supportive opinions, many people are still concerned about whether it is possible to thoroughly implement the requirement for officials to travel on low-cost airlines?

Mr. Tran Ngoc Vinh, National Assembly Delegate of Hai Phong City, commented: “Currently, the Ministry of Transport requires some unqualified officials not to take expensive air tickets, but to choose low-cost air tickets. This is to ensure the regime's policy towards officials. It also practices thrift as per the policy. For officials, implementing this is not only an economic calculation, more importantly, it is close to the people. This is something worth doing and should be widely replicated…”.

Agreeing with this view, Historian Duong Trung Quoc, National Assembly Delegate of Dong Nai Province, said: “This is a separate policy of the Ministry of Transport, but it reflects the concern for rationalizing and improving the efficiency of using public funds of the State. However, this is a means of transportation to work, so it must ensure both factors: serving work reasonably and reducing spending. Not only the Ministry of Transport does this, but other places need to do the same.”

Before making this decision, Minister Dinh La Thang took a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi on October 15. He and the Deputy Chief of the Ministry's Office went to Hanoi on low-cost airline Jetstar Pacific Airline with a round-trip ticket price of only 2.5 million VND. Meanwhile, if they had taken another airline, both of them would have spent nearly 12 million VND for a round-trip ticket. Thus, the travel expenses for this business trip alone saved nearly 10 million VND.

Messages that go viral

Besides the supportive opinions, many people are still hesitant about whether it can be implemented thoroughly or just said and left there. One problem that needs to be changed is the quality and service of low-cost airlines. According to them, the weakness of low-cost airlines is that they cannot change the time and are often delayed, affecting their work.

Mr. Tran Du Lich, a National Assembly delegate from Ho Chi Minh City, welcomed and supported that idea, but raised the question: “Can it be implemented? I suggest that the Ministry of Transport, the aviation management agency, should have a policy, which is a strategy for low-cost aviation. In addition to building new airports, old, low-cost terminals should be used to develop low-cost aviation. If that can be done, it will benefit the whole society…”.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said that some officials and civil servants in the transport sector have taken business trips by low-cost airlines following the request of the Minister. At the same time, it said that this is an opportunity for airlines to evaluate and improve their competitiveness and attract customers.

Mr. Luu Thanh Binh, Deputy Director of the Civil Aviation Authority, Ministry of Transport, said: “The competition of low-cost airlines will promote traditional airlines. The requirement is to approach the form of ticket sales with many different ticket prices. According to current regulations, any airline operating in the Vietnamese market must strictly ensure the implementation of safety and security factors, ensure flight hours of aircraft, periodic maintenance and inspection regimes and civil liability of the airline operating the flight…”

Low-cost airlines have been present in Vietnam since 2007, accounting for more than 35% of the domestic aviation market share. A few years ago, the Singaporean Prime Minister returned home as a regular passenger on a Tiger Airways low-cost flight after a visit to Vietnam. In Vietnam, whether Minister Dinh La Thang's decision is feasible or not depends on the coordination of ministries, branches, state agencies and airline ticket sales units. But the general spirit of the message is to encourage officials to travel to work by low-cost airlines to save budget. While we are tightening spending and reducing budget expenditures, this decision also needs to be spread to other areas./.

According to VOV