Vietnamese people travel by 'private' plane

Instead of buying regular airline tickets, recently many companies have chartered entire flights to attract tourists. Few people know that it is a luxury to fly on a private plane but the price is significantly cheaper than the "normal" one.

Not only Russian and Japanese tourists... are chartering planes to Vietnam, but Vietnamese people are also starting to charter entire planes for travel. However, what few people expect is that the price of this type of tour is reduced by 20-35% compared to regular tours.

Diverse charter tours

As a person who recently joined a charter tour group, Ms. Tran Thi Thu Trang (Thu Duc district) said she booked a tour to Japan when she was introduced to this tour package with a cheaper price, private plane, on-time flight... even though she had to postpone her original travel plan.

According to Ms. Trang, at first hearing about charter tours was quite strange, so she was quite concerned about the quality.

However, a 5-day charter tour of a business to Japan was only 26 million VND/person, compared to a normal tour of over 30 million, so she decided to buy it.

A representative of Vietravel Tourism Company said that currently, the company's charter air tours are popular because of their reasonable prices, on-time departures, and rare cancellations...

If in 2016 and 2017 this unit brought nearly 700 guests to Fukushima (Japan) on charter flights, from February to April 2018 it will introduce and organize for about 3,000 guests.

"The highlight of the charter product is that tourists will save 30% of the cost," he said, adding that he has continuously expanded charter flight routes, such as from Ho Chi Minh City to Phuket (Thailand); Jeju (South Korea); Lumbini, Bodh Gaya (India)...

Ms. Tran Thi Bao Thu, Director of Fiditour's marketing and communications department, also said that this unit has hired a charter for a tour to Con Dao.

The method is also flexible, depending on low or high season, you can charter the whole flight or share with the airline.

According to Ms. Thu, chartering flights will help the company get very good prices while still ensuring quality, increasing price competitiveness.

Many travel companies confirm that charter tour prices are usually 30-35% lower than normal tour prices.

The reason is that they often take advantage of the return flights of charter flights from abroad to Vietnam (planes cannot wait for charter passengers from abroad to Vietnam to complete the tour but must return immediately - PV).

Therefore, a round trip ticket from Hanoi to Seoul is 350 USD but a charter ticket costs only about 200 USD (including taxes and fees). Cheap airfares make the tour price cheaper.

Another reason why charter flights are cheap is because flights are always full, with over 150 people, with that many people, travel agencies arrange early bookings and not only restaurants but also airlines discount meals.

Benefits in time and cost

Airlines are also taking the lead in this travel trend and affirm that their policy for private charter flights is to have flexible routes and flight times in the most beneficial direction for tourists.

For example, you can depart early and return late, fly without transit, fly directly to the tourist destination, fly to any airport that the airline is allowed to operate...

An airline leader said that because passengers on charter flights are concentrated, procedures are often prepared in advance and are faster.

Jetstar Airlines representative said that the airline also received many contracts from large companies or travel companies with a stable source of customers to rent charters.

According to this person, if the travel company has enough customers to travel two ways or cooperates with foreign partners to bring customers to Vietnam, the profits will be much greater.

Although there is potential to further reduce some costs, to charter an entire flight, the number of passengers must be at least 150. Ms. Tran Thi Bao Thu said the biggest pressure on travel companies is to ensure that chartered flights meet the passenger quota.

According to many travel experts, the "luxury" game of chartering entire planes is basically not for small businesses.

Besides the cost of organization, limited time to receive guests with a large number of seats, so large travel agencies have an advantage.

Chartering an entire flight means taking the loss and taking the profit, so if you don't evaluate the market correctly and can't sell all the seats, you'll lose heavily.

Although there are still difficulties, according to tourism experts, in the coming time, charter will develop more and more for many reasons, in which Vietnam is becoming an increasingly attractive destination for international visitors, tour prices are increasingly suitable...

According to Tien Phong Newspaper