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| Cargo is unloaded from a Vietnam Airlines plane at Tan Son Nhat Airport. Currently, this flagship carrier and Jetstar Pacific transport cargo on their passenger planes - Photo: Mong Binh |
Le Giang Long, deputy director of Trai Thien Air Cargo, told the Daily on the phone that the carrier had asked the Singaporean-based Airmark Co. to find the planes allowable for operations in Vietnam and overseas, and the first freighter could arrive some time this month.
“We hope to receive the first freighter to Vietnam in the next 15 days if we can find the plane that meets requirements,” Long said. He added that the launch of cargo services would depend on the delivery of the freighter.
Long said actually foreign partners had found a freighter for Trai Thien Air Cargo but this plane failed to meet the standards. The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) said aviation regulations clarified an aircraft would be licensed to be operational in the country if it was less than 25 years old to the time of lease contract termination.
This is one of the reasons why CAAV warned Trai Thien Air Cargo of the previous freighter that the company intended to use. This resulted in a delay of the carrier’s flight launch in July.
Trai Thien Air Cargo got a business license dated Jun 11, 2008 from the HCMC Department of Planning and Investment with charter capital of VND500 billion (some US$25.6 million). Last year the Ministry of Transport granted the carrier approval to join the country’s aviation market.
Trai Thien Air Cargo’s planned freighter fleet includes Boeing 737-300Fs converted from the passenger aircraft of this type to transport pallets and containers on the main deck. The company is Vietnam’s first operator of freighters for the domestic and international routes, with the focus on the north-south runs as well as those to and from Northeast and Southeast Asia.
The cargo segment of Vietnam’s aviation market has been growing fast over the past decade with 445,800 tons going through the country’s airports last year, or quadrupling that in 2000. The volume in the first half of this year increased by 31.8% year-on-year to 273,600 tons.
