Vietnamese people in US applauds resumption of int’l commercial flights

Many Vietnamese people and businesses in the US have shown their support for the homeland’s restoration of international commercial flights, describing the move as a good start for the New Year.

Talking to the Vietnam News Agency, Sean Lam, Vice President of IMSG - a partner of the Vietnam Air Traffic Management Corporation, said after almost two years of international flight suspension, Vietnamese guest workers with expired labour contracts, students, or people on business trips but stranded abroad now has huge demand for reuniting with their families. To overseas Vietnamese (OVs) who haven’t come back to the homeland for a long time or those seeking investment opportunities, the flight resumption will make it easier for them to make travel plans.

He said he has always longed for a return to the homeland to visit his relatives and friends and meet partners to promote investment and business projects.

Vietnamese ministries and sectors’ consensus to reopen regular international air routes while the COVID-19 pandemic remains tense with the appearance of new variants demonstrates the strong resolve to bring the country back to normal. It also illustrates the great attention to the travel, studying, and working demand of Vietnamese people both at home and abroad, Lam went on.

He noted with appropriate anti-pandemic measures, the country is able to safely welcome OVs back while ensuring good control of the pandemic, thus raising people’s hope and trust to gradually recover and develop the economy.

The reopening of some international air routes, especially the direct one between Vietnam and the US, since January 1 is highly useful for strengthening Vietnamese enterprises’ cooperation with foreign partners, according to the IMSG executive.

Echoing the view, Nguyen Huu Quoc, owner of a travel company in the state of Maryland, said though Vietnam’s restoration of regular international flights is slower than other regional countries, it will be an encouraging start and a condition for businesses to resume operations and reactivate services for international tourists, helping restart the tourism sector.

Tran Kim Ngoc, an accountant at the US-based CPA company, said the resumption not only create conditions for many OVs to reunite with their families during the Lunar New Year festival but also meet people’s travel and studying demand.

The move is greatly expected by not only businesses but also the entire Vietnamese community in the US. It shows the Government’s attention to people’s demand and investment cooperation so as to shore up the economy in the time ahead, she added.