Bustling air ticket market during Lunar New Year

Since the end of 2015, Vietnamese airlines have launched many promotional programs to reduce ticket prices, and announced to increase capacity and open many new routes during the 2016 Lunar New Year.

(Illustration photo: Phuong Vy/VNA)

Mr. Phan Manh Tung, Director of Nam Phuong Travel Service Company, said that this year's Binh Than Tet, the number of domestic airline tickets is abundant, with more options than in previous years. However, tickets for flights from Ho Chi Minh City to other provinces and cities are almost sold out. Meanwhile, flights departing from the North still have many types of tickets with very cheap prices.

Similarly, the owner of Thai Danh Nguyen Danh Thang airline ticket office shared: “The situation of shortage of tickets and sold-out air tickets during Tet still occurs on certain routes, mainly odd routes, departing from Ho Chi Minh City to other localities. However, it is not too difficult to buy a pair of round-trip air tickets for domestic flights at the present time.”

According to information from private airline Vietjet Air, one-way tickets for flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang, Binh Dinh, Hue, Hai Phong... are almost sold out. For the remaining routes, there are still many tickets available with a variety of price options.

According to Vietjet Air representative, recently, the airline has put many new planes into operation, opened new routes, increased 800 flights with 150,000 air tickets reserved for the Lunar New Year 2016. In addition, Vietjet Air has also launched promotional programs to sell air tickets, with preferential prices of 0 VND very early, thereby attracting a large number of customers, helping to reduce the worry of running out of tickets at the last minute like every year.

Low-cost airfares from Ho Chi Minh City to northern provinces and cities of Jetstar Pacific Airlines are also in short supply, although the airline said it has increased capacity by more than 50% compared to the same period last year.

As for Vietnam Airlines, up to now, although it has announced an increase of 800 one-way flights on routes with high demand for domestic and international flights, equivalent to 136,000 seats on 22 routes, most of the promotional tickets for domestic flights are no longer available on the airline's online sales page.

Routes departing from Ho Chi Minh City to the northern provinces and cities are mostly limited to business class tickets. Other routes still have tickets available for the public.

Among the forms of selling airline tickets, buying airline tickets online through airline websites is becoming a more popular and preferred trend than other forms.

Mr. Tung analyzed that the procedure for buying airline tickets online is relatively easy and does not take much time. With just a few mouse clicks and information declaration, customers can immediately own round-trip airline tickets via the Internet.

According to Mr. Tung, customers who buy airline tickets through intermediaries are currently mainly loyal customers or buying in large groups. This helps airlines avoid the situation of "hoarding" tickets, "fake" tickets sold out by airline ticket agents, and at the same time brings more convenience to customers who need to buy tickets.

Explaining the phenomenon of sold-out tickets on some routes, a representative of Jetstar Pacific Airlines said that the market of Ho Chi Minh City and some neighboring areas gathers many industrial parks and large-scale manufacturing companies, including thousands of workers from the North coming to work and live.

Every Tet holiday, the flow of people from the South to the North is very large, causing the situation of flight tickets for routes departing from Ho Chi Minh City to the Northern provinces often running out early, except for the routes from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and Da Nang, which are the main routes with higher flight frequency and use larger aircraft, so there are still tickets available to sell to people.

To better serve customers during the 2016 Lunar New Year, Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar Pacific Airlines and Vietjet Air have all committed to increasing the number of staff at all customer support points and on flights. In addition, the airlines have implemented online check-in services, helping customers shorten the time to declare procedures before flying.

However, to avoid possible chaos during peak times, Vietnam Airlines also recommends that passengers carefully consider their expected travel schedule and the availability of seats on flights to make appropriate choices.

Passengers should proactively plan their travel time to ensure proper check-in procedures and arrive at the airport 3 hours before departure to complete all airline procedures with full identification documents for relatives and children./.

According to Vietnam+