Viet Nam mulls traffic-light system for domestic resumption
The Civil Aviation Authority of Viet Nam (CAAV) has submitted a draft proposal to the country’s Ministry of Transport classifying airports by the level of Covid-19 risk to passengers, as it considers a reopening of domestic scheduled flights.
The proposal comes ten days after the authority ordered all local carriers to stop selling tickets for domestic flights in light of the ongoing spread of the pandemic.
Civil airports across the country – there are 25 of them according to the ch-aviation capacities module but the proposal lists 22 – should be divided into three groups: green (in cities and provinces not subject to social distancing), yellow (in areas applying some social distancing measures), and red (in localities enforcing all social distancing measures).
Flights from green zones to other zones would operate without limits on the number of passengers, but passengers must show a negative result from a Covid test conducted within 72 hours or a vaccination certificate.
Flights from yellow zones would be available only to passengers on business trips, municipal officials, and pandemic prevention personnel, also if they bear a negative test or vaccination document, while those from red zones would be restricted to officials and medical personnel. Tighter controls would be applied to other passengers.
The aviation authority suggested that all Vietnamese airlines be allowed to organise the sale and operation of domestic routes in full according to their slot allocations, if these requirements and conditions are enforced.
The goal of the proposal, it added, is to build an automatic mechanism for carriers to rebuild their operations, while also promoting economic recovery among the country’s regions and businesses.
Four carriers operate domestic passenger routes, Vietnam Airlines, Bamboo Airways, Vietravel Airlines, and VietJetAir, while Vietnam Airlines subsidiary Pacific Airlines operates as a capacity provider for its parent. Viet Nam has remained almost entirely cut off from international passenger travel since March 2020.