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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 1173.PDF
VIETNAM AIRLINES ure, which caused a lengthy dispute over who would pay for the repairs. The A310 was replaced at Vietnam Airlines by anoth er A310 owned by GATX, which was also operated by Jes Air crews. The grounding in Taipei followed an incident in February 1993, when the A310's owner, United Technologies, obtained a temporary injunction prevent ing it from being flown back to Vietnam, impounding it for days in Singapore. Although this incident was resolved, the relationship with Jes Air was "a bit of a dog's dinner", according to one official, and Vietnam Airlines decided to switch to Boeing 767s for its longer-haul services. A 767-200ER was leased from Ansett Worldwide from January 1993 and a Royal Brunei Airlines 767-300ER, wet-leased through Region Air, arrived in January 1994, replacing the GATX A310. The - 200ER is flown by Ansett training captains, with some Vietnamese crew now joining the aircraft, while the -300ER is flown entirely by Royal Brunei pilots. Although the arrival of the 767s repre sents an important foothold within the air line for Boeing, one result of the embargo was that it- provided non-US companies with a head start in developing relation ships with the Vietnamese, and an oppor tunity to demonstrate good faith. The most obvious example was Air France, which signed an extensive co-operative agreement with Vietnam Airlines in August 1993. The seeds were sown during the first state visit of French President Francois Mitterrand to the former colony in July 1992. Mitterrand was accompanied by Bernard Attali, then Air France chairman, who saw the untapped potential in Vietnam, and determined that Air France would secure access ahead of any other European or US carriers. Priam says: "We negotiated for co-oper ation in many areas of activity in Vietnam Airlines, like training, a marketing alliance, maintenance and technical. Even in the long-term future, Air France could acquire some equity, if our Government allows us to privatise". He adds: "In many of these pro grammes, we decided to start from the eas iest point. Air France launched a lease agreement to provide us with five A320s with customer support, and agreed to train our Vietnam Airlines pilots and cabin crews and our technical people. But this is Wet-leased Air France A320 at Tan Sun Nhat m ir « ' iJifa Jtt '2k ;^T«*HB a^\. only one part of our co-operation." The first three A320s arrived on two-year wet leases in October 1993, followed by two more in February 1994. The aircraft are operated on ser vices to Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Phnom Penh. As part of the deal, Air France is also helping to upgrade the mainten ance base at Ho Chi Minh City, which should receive clearance to complete "A" checks on the A320s by the end of May. Air France is also putting Vietnam Airlines pilots through type-conversion training in France. The first graduates should start fly ing as A320 first officers in September. Although the Air France deal, and the two 767 leases, have solved Vietnam Airlines' short-term problem, the carrier is now planning a complete replacement pro gramme, which will sweep away the last remnants of its old Soviet-built fleet. The airline still operates 12 Tu-134s, two Yak- 40s and one 11-18, but the Yaks will be phased out by the end of this year, and Pham hopes to have all-Western equip ment by the end of 1996. FLEET REPLACEMENT By 2000, Pham says that the airline will need 12-15 aircraft "similar to" the A320, five to eight aircraft in the 767 class and ten ATR 72-sized turboprops. He says that the term "similar to" is used deliberately, because "...the position of our management is that we try to keep the door open to everyone. We say 'similar to' the A320, but it could be the 737-400 or the 737-X or the McDonnell Douglas MD-90". Pham adds: "It depends not only on our internal evaluation. We have to work out with the financing people how to get export credit financing — for example, from Eximbank. This is quite difficult, and it takes time, but we hope to complete our evaluations sometime in 1995." Vietnam Airlines did sign a letter of intent with Boeing in 1993 to acquire a small number of 737-400s, before the agreement with Air France was reached, but the deal was stalled by the need to obtain US State Department approval. Pham says: "Until now, we haven't renewed it, but Boeing are now interested in offering us a package of 737s, 757s and 767s, New departure lounge at Tan Sun Nhat with pilot training and instructors and maintenance support." The fleet expansion will also mean step ping up the recruitment and training of engineers and pilots, as Pham estimates that Vietnam Airlines will need around 500 pilots by 2000, plus 300 engineers and between 500 and 600 technicians. This compares with the 200 pilots flying today, within a total workforce of 3,600 people. The transition to Western training methods is one symptom of the cultural transformation at the airline, which previ ously trained all its pilots, engineers and managers in the former Soviet Union. Pham, who spent five years at the Institute of Civil Aviation in Kiev, says: "This is a very interesting period at Vietnam Airlines. Most of our executives and employees are very young — some of our executives and directors are younger than 30, and even at board level, some are in their mid-30s." Along with the manufacturers, the major US airlines have also approached Vietnam Airlines in the hope of securing a joint-ven ture deal which would serve the expatriate Vietnamese community in North America. A joint marketing agreement would co ordinate schedules so that passengers from the US East Coast could link up with Vietnam Airlines flights to Paris or Berlin, for example, with a similar arrangement across the Pacific. The other major initia tive on the horizon is the plan for a limited flotation of Vietnam Airlines shares, once the country's first stock exchanges are established, either at the end of this year or in 1995. Pham confirms that a feasibility study was started early this year. Pham says: "We have made some pro posals and had some discussions with our authorities, but, until now, they have not given any comment, because they still don't know what the project will look like." The main priorities now are to increase frequencies to major regional points, to fly to Japan and to upgrade the domestic-route network, because "...we are the national carrier". Pham adds: "We are a regional carrier, not a global carrier, and we will try to maintain that." FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 11 -17 May, 1994 27
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