The Civil Aviation Authority requires Pacific Airlines to ensure customer benefits.

After a recent meeting on fleet operations, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam directed Vietnam Airlines Corporation and Pacific Airlines to implement three tasks.

First, the Civil Aviation Authority requires Pacific Airlines to ensure the rights of passengers who have purchased tickets. The airline will refund the ticket price to passengers and will not charge any fees in case the flight is canceled and passengers do not need to use any services of Pacific Airlines during the suspension period.

Second, the airline needs to refund unused slots during the restructuring period due to the impact of reducing the number of aircraft.

Third, the airline urgently restructures its fleet and puts its aircraft back into operation as soon as possible. Pacific Airlines reports to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam on its fleet restructuring plan and operation plan before March 22.

The Civil Aviation Authority requires Pacific Airlines to refund tickets to customers. (Illustration photo: VnExpress).

Previously, Pacific Airlines temporarily suspended flights from March 18, after returning all aircraft leased from partners.

Returning all aircraft to the partner will erase some of the agreed debts, helping to reduce the financial burden for Pacific Airlines and Vietnam Airlines.

A representative of Pacific Airlines said that the company has negotiated with aircraft owners to handle large debts. This is a strategic part of Pacific Airlines' restructuring process.

“Pacific Airlines has reached an agreement with the aircraft owners to clear debts of about 220 million USD. However, Pacific Airlines must fulfill its commitment to return the entire A320 fleet to the ship owners. Therefore, from March 18, 2024, Pacific Airlines will temporarily suspend flights to focus on ensuring conditions for returning the ships as committed,” said a representative of Pacific Airlines.

All negotiations with the aircraft owner were carried out according to pre-planned procedures, so Pacific Airlines proactively coordinated and transferred all passengers who had purchased tickets to Vietnam Airlines.

The passenger transfer was completed in the first week of March 2024. Currently, all passengers have been transferred to the corresponding flights operated by Vietnam Airlines. At the same time, the airline also informed passengers of full information about flight changes through the sales systems of Vietnam Airlines and Pacific Airlines.

"Passenger rights and requests will be guaranteed by Vietnam Airlines through Vietnam Airlines' customer care system," said a representative of Pacific Airlines.

During the suspension of flights, Pacific Airlines will continue to maintain a permanent force at passenger contact points (airports, ticket offices, customer care centers, etc.) to receive and immediately handle any arising requests from passengers.

Pacific Airlines is the first low-cost airline in Vietnam, which received investment from Australia's Qantas Group.

In October 2020, Qantas Group completed procedures to withdraw from Pacific Airlines and transferred 30% of its shares to Vietnam Airlines in the form of a gift. By the first quarter of 2022, this deal was completed and Vietnam Airlines has held nearly 99% of the shares in Pacific Airlines since then.

According to Vietnam Airlines' annual report, in 2022, Pacific Airlines recorded total annual revenue of nearly VND 3,487 billion, pre-tax loss of VND 2,096 billion, a loss of VND 212 billion compared to 2021.

With 3 consecutive years of losses of over 2,000 billion VND/year since the COVID-19 period, it is estimated that Pacific Airlines' accumulated loss by the end of 2022 has reached over 10,700 billion VND and negative equity of 6,700 billion VND.

Before March 18, Pacific Airlines leased 6 A320 aircraft, operating domestic flights from North to South, the most popular of which were Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Phu Quoc, Da Lat and some international flights to major cities around the world such as Bangkok, Taipei, Auckland, Manila, Singapore, Phnom Penh, Sydney.

Chau Anh

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