According to statistics, from February 1 to February 4, there were more than 310 empty flights from northern airports to Tan Son Nhat Airport (HCMC). On February 3 alone, the number of empty flights reached 104. This number is expected to continue to increase in the coming days.
The flight notification screen on the night of February 5 and early morning of February 6 at Noi Bai airport (Hanoi) shows many empty flights flying to Ho Chi Minh City.
The above data may not attract passengers' attention, but it has a lot of meaning in the operation and customer service of airlines.
The Lunar New Year is a time when travel increases, so airlines have to add more flights to best meet passenger demand. However, the characteristic of the days before Tet is that the majority of passengers fly from Ho Chi Minh City to the Central and Northern provinces to return home for Tet. Meanwhile, the opposite direction, from the Northern provinces to Ho Chi Minh City, is very sparse, leading to many flights from Hanoi and Northern airports to Ho Chi Minh City having to fly empty.
This situation will repeat itself on the Ho Chi Minh City - Hanoi route after Tet. At that time, the number of people returning to the southern provinces to work will increase, forcing airlines to operate many empty flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and northern airports. Last year, after the Lunar New Year holiday, from January 26 to 30 (the 5th to the 9th of Tet), there were 399 empty flights taking off from Tan Son Nhat airport to northern airports.
According to an article in Forbes, if a short- to medium-haul narrow-body aircraft flies an empty flight over a 1,000-mile (1,600km) route, the airline will lose about $30,000 in costs. This is a direct loss from fuel, maintenance, take-off and landing fees, and salaries, not to mention other costs that airlines face. From that figure, it is easy to see the significant cost that Vietnamese airlines lose when operating an empty flight on a 1,200km route between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
The number of passengers returning home for Tet from the southern provinces is so high that airlines have to fly empty flights to Ho Chi Minh City, without calculating the damage.
According to calculations, fuel costs account for about 39.5% of total costs for airlines. This year's Tet holiday is a time when jet fuel prices are high due to the ongoing war situation in some areas of the world, and due to increased fuel demand during the harsh winter in many countries. Therefore, empty flights have a big impact on airlines' revenue. The more empty flights, the more seriously the revenue is affected.
But with the responsibility of serving passengers, Vietnamese airlines have not calculated these losses. The goal of airlines in particular, and the entire aviation industry in general, is to not let passengers stay in foreign lands during the new spring days.
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