No cheap Tet flight tickets

More flights, more prices

Vietnam Airlines has officially launched ticket sales for the Lunar New Year 2019. Accordingly, from January 20, 2019 to February 19, 2019 (December 15 - January 15), Vietnam Airlines will provide 1.4 million seats on its domestic network, an increase of more than 100,000 seats (equivalent to 566 flights) over the same period.

Jetstar Pacific Airlines has also sold a total of nearly 600,000 seats (3,210 flights) to serve the increased demand of passengers during the Lunar New Year. The two airlines continue to maintain a wide range of ticket prices with many flexible prices. Previously, from September 18, Vietjet Air also announced the opening of Tet flight ticket sales with millions of attractive tickets, applied on all domestic routes in Vietnam, domestic routes in Thailand and many international routes. Both Jetstar Pacific and Vietjet have announced the opening of many new routes, increasing many flights to serve the increased travel and family reunion needs of people during the holidays.

Although many passengers were ready to buy early to hunt for cheap tickets, they were disappointed because on the first day of sale, there were no cheap tickets. Referring to the ticket prices for the "hot" route from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi on January 26 (December 21), 17 Vietjet flights all cost more than 3.1 million VND/way. Low-cost airline Jetstar Pacific even pushed the price up to more than 3.5 million VND.

The "big brother" Vietnam Airlines still recorded the highest price with more than 20 flights all at the ceiling price, nearly 3.6 million VND. This price remained stable until January 31 (the 26th day of the lunar calendar) and started to increase from January 1, 2019. Specifically, to have a ticket from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi to celebrate Tet on the 28th day of the lunar calendar (February 2), customers must spend at least 3.4 million VND if buying from VietJet airline. The same-day price range of Vietnam Airlines or Jetstar Pacific remains unchanged, maintaining the level of 3.5 - 3.6 million VND/way.

At some other airline ticket agents, in the week before Tet, if you want to fly during the golden hours (from 9 am to 12 pm), Vietnam Airlines tickets for the same route are up to more than 4.1 million VND/way/person. Tickets to the Central provinces and some other Northern provinces also fluctuate at 5 - 7 million VND/round trip ticket. Thus, from the first days of sale, although there were many different price ranges, most Tet tickets were only at the ceiling price.

Worry about the place then think about the price

Compared to the same period last year, airfares for Tet this year have increased slightly. The representative of the national airline explained that Tet is always the peak season of the year, airlines always try to increase the number of flights to meet the maximum demand of passengers, but due to many factors, supply certainly cannot meet demand. Therefore, according to the market mechanism, there cannot be cheap prices during Tet. This person affirmed that the airline always complies with the requirements of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, not exceeding the ceiling price, this year's ticket prices are slightly higher than last year's prices, possibly due to the increase in system management fees applied from the beginning of July.

Explaining why the price of tickets has only been reduced to the ceiling price range as soon as they were sold, this person said that the demand is so high that most customers now no longer wait for the airline to open sales before buying, they book in advance through agents, when the airline officially releases tickets, the agents will register immediately, "grabbing" the cheaper ticket range. "The demand for travel during Tet is very high, so people should be concerned about whether there are seats available before thinking about whether they can buy at a cheap price or not" - this person warned.

A representative of another airline also informed that air tickets are always sold at many different price ranges, depending on the time, flight, flight route and seat availability. Normally, the closer the ticket is to the departure date, the higher the price, so passengers sometimes have to book a year in advance to buy cheap tickets. However, during holidays, especially Lunar New Year, the cheap price ranges will sell out quickly due to high customer demand. Therefore, even though airlines do not increase prices, it is still difficult for customers to hope to buy cheap tickets during Tet.

Thanh Nien Newspaper