The Ministry of Transport has turned down a proposal from the Aviation Authority to remove the distancing rule on flights.

Proposal to lift distancing rule on plane rejected

The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) sent an official document to propose to the Ministry of Transport on May 4 to completely lift the distancing rule during flights so that planes can carry passengers with full capacity from May 5. However, the ministry said that the one metre-distancing rule is important during the check-in procedures, queuing or sitting on planes. Other preventative measures must also be kept.

The CAAV also proposed to the ministry to adjust the implementation time of flight frequencies on domestic routes. According to the proposal, from May 5, there should have been 52 return flights on Hanoi-HCM City route, 20 flights on Hanoi-Danang and 20 flights on HCM City-Danang. Other routes should have the number of flights based on demand.

From June 1, the flight schedules for 2019/2020 winter would allow airlines to operate passenger and cargo flights on domestic routes and cargo flights for international routes.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance is gathering opinions for a draft circular about charges and fees in the aviation sector as the ministry is planning on lowering a number of fees including the evaluation fees for certificates, licenses and certificates in civil aviation activities.

The fees for evaluation and granting certificates for designing, manufacturing, maintaining and testing aircraft establishments for the first time will be lowered from VND20m (USD850) to VND16m. The fees for re-issue due to content changing will be lowered from VND15m to VND12m.

The fees for evaluation and granting certificates to establish facilities providing flight operations assurance services will be lowered from VND5-30m (USD212-1,300) to VND4-24m. Fees for establishing services at airports will be lowered by VND10m to VND40m.

The lower fees will be applied until the end of 2020. Dtinews

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