Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam’s aviation sector hasserved an increasing number of passengers following the resumption of domestic flightsand certain international air routes disrupted by COVID-19.

National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines said it now operatesabout 200 flights a day with nearly 40,000 passengers in total, compared to the17,500 passengers it welcomed each day in August.

Budget carrier Vietjet Air has restored its 40 domesticroutes, conducting 160 flights a day, up 60 percent against August, and with occupancyof over 60 percent, according to the airline’s Deputy General Director Nguyen ThanhSon.

Bamboo Airways, meanwhile, said it served only 5,000-6,000passenger a day during the second COVID-19 outbreak, but the number reached 12,000-15,000once the pandemic was contained.

Notably, occupancy on the Hanoi-Con Dao route, launchedon September 29, has approached 100 percent.

To Tu Ha, Deputy Director of Hanoi’s Noi Bai InternationalAirport, said that passenger throughput at the airport has increased 15 percenta week since the beginning of September.

On weekends, the airport handles more than 250 flightswith over 32,000 passengers each day, up nearly three-fold against August.

A Vietnam Airlines aircraft took offfrom Incheon International Airport in the Republic of Korea (RoK) for Noi Bai on September25, marking the resumption of routine commercial flights between the two countries.

The resumption of flights received awarm welcome from Vietnamese citizens in the RoK as well as Koreans, especiallybusinesspeople and investors.

Vo Huy Cuong, Deputy Director of theCivil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, said at the time it is not only the firstinternational flight to Vietnam after COVID-19 but also a pilot flight reviewingthe domestic aviation sector’s capacity to serve international tourists followingthe pandemic.

It marks the recovery of Vietnam’s aviationsector, he added, contributing to completing the dual goals of containing the pandemicand ensuring socio-economic development.

On September 30, Viejet Air also resumedinternational commercial flights, with flight VJ962 from Hanoi to Seoul and VJ862from HCM City to Seoul. The latter route is to be reopened on October 7.

Representatives from Vietnam Airlines,Vietjet Air, and Bamboo Airways said they all stand ready for the resumption ofregular international flights.

Economists have said the resumption of flights from Vietnamto Japan and the RoK and then Guangzhou, Taiwan (China), Laos, and Cambodia is expectedto help improve the carriers’ revenue post-COVID-19.

The domestic market is projected to recover by the endof this year and perhaps even surpass the number of passengers recorded in the sameperiod last year.

Passenger trafficfor Vietnamese carriers should rebound faster than in other Southeast Asian marketsthanks to the low COVID-19 incidence in the country, a report from Fitch Ratingssaid.

The report estimates that the average revenue passengerkilometres (RPK) of Vietnamese airlines this year will reach 55 percent of lastyear’s figure.

RPK is an airline industry metric that expresses the numberof kilometres travelled by paying passengers. The RPK of Vietnamese airlines was77.9 billion last year, up more than 11 percent year-on-year, according to the GeneralStatistics Office.

The ratio of 55 percent forecast for local carriers thisyear is higher than the 35 percent estimated for most airlines in other ASEAN countrieslike Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia.

The report also forecasts that, by 2021, Vietnamese carrierswill record an average RPK that is 90 percent of the figure in 2019, compared to60 percent in the aforementioned ASEAN countries, showing that the former will stagea faster recovery from the impact of the pandemic./.