HANOI – Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung has approved a proposal by the Ministry of Investment and Planning to suspend a plan to establish a new airline called Kite Air.
On August 27, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung wrote to the prime minister about the plan to establish Kite Air and proposed rejecting the plan due to the unfavorable aviation market conditions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. And on September 5, Deputy PM Trinh Dinh Dung officially backed the Ministry of Investment and Planning's proposal. Earlier, the Transport Ministry had proposed that the prime minister focus on the recovery of the aviation market and the removal of obstacles facing operational carriers, given the impact of the health crisis. The establishment of new air carriers should be considered after the aviation market recovers, it said. In January this year, the Ministry of Planning and Investment sent a report to the prime minister saying that Kite Air had completed the essential legal procedures for its establishment including ownership capital, a business plan, aircraft fleet and development strategies that meet the demands of the aviation market. The ministry proposed that the Government leader appraise and consider approving the carrier project. However, the pandemic affected all the preparations made by the carrier owner and the relevant agencies, prompting the ministries to suggest that licenses for new airlines be issued only after 2022, once the aviation market is back on track. Accordingly, Thien Minh Aviation JSC, the owner of the airline project, has been forced to postpone the project for the next two years after one year of preparing for it. Kite Air is the second local carrier, whose launch has been rejected over the past three years. Previously, Vietstar Airlines, owned by Vietstar Airlines Multirole Corporation, was refused an operation license as it chose Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC as its base airport and the airport has been facing an overload of passengers.By Lan Nhi
