Currently, ticket prices from Ho Chi Minh City to the Northern provinces are very high. Statistics from some agencies show that ticket prices on certain routes have increased by 5-10% compared to the previous month, even leading to seat shortages.
All flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Vinh and Thanh Hoa are sold out until February 9th.
According to a survey on February 5th, from February 6th to 9th, the one-way ticket prices for flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi are all over 3 million Vietnamese dong, mainly on overnight flights. In particular, all direct flights are sold out on February 6th. Passengers have to accept connecting flights with prices ranging from 3.8 to 14 million Vietnamese dong.
Meanwhile, booking flights to other provinces is even more stressful. All flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Thanh Hoa are sold out from February 6th to 8th. Passengers can only book tickets to the Tho Xuan Airport (Thanh Hoa) on February 9th with a one-way price of over 3.2 million Vietnamese dong.
A similar situation is happening with flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Vinh, where there are no available tickets on February 6th. On February 7th, there is only one overnight flight operated by Vietjet Air with a price of nearly 3.5 million Vietnamese dong. Furthermore, on February 8th, there are no airlines operating direct flights to Vinh. All flights have to go through the Noi Bai Airport.
Flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Hai Phong and Quang Ninh are also not promising. This situation has made many passengers extremely worried.
Ms. Minh Anh, who lives in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, said: “For recent holidays, even though flight prices increased, I could still buy cheap tickets if I booked close to the departure date. However, for this year’s Tet holiday, the closer to the date, the more expensive the tickets. If I’m a few minutes late, all tickets will be sold out. The flight to Thanh Hoa costs over 3 million dong, so I have to switch to trains to go back to my hometown.”
“I also thought that buying tickets close to the date would be easier, but the situation is not optimistic at all as the ticket prices have already increased by about 15%. So, I have to reluctantly accept it. My family consists of 3 people, and just buying round-trip tickets has cost us a budget of up to 25 million dong for this Tet holiday,” shared Mr. Manh, who lives in Phu My Hung area, Ho Chi Minh City.
According to the explanation from the Civil Aviation Authority and airlines, the expensive ticket prices during Tet holiday are due to the fact that airlines have to compensate for the round-trip cost according to the market regulation.
Data shows that regular or summer flights are fully booked for round-trip tickets, while most Tet flights have a large imbalance. One-way tickets are fully booked, while the other way is either empty or has a very low passenger rate, reaching only 20 – 25% of seat capacity.
From February 1st to 4th, airlines had to operate more than 300 empty flights (Ferry) from local airports to Tan Son Nhat Airport for waiting, maintenance, and preparation for the flights from Ho Chi Minh City to the Central and Northern regions.
Passengers continuously experience delayed flights in the past 2 days due to foggy weather.
Notably, with dense foggy weather until Tet holiday, those who have already bought tickets are also struggling with their flights back to their hometowns. According to statistics from the Tan Son Nhat Airport Operation Center, from 0:00 on February 1st to 16:00 on February 3rd, nearly 60% of flights were delayed.
Two airlines affected the most were Vietjet Air with 257 affected flights, accounting for more than 74% of the total flights operated by the airline. Vietnam Airlines also had 209 affected flights, accounting for more than 59%.
Along with the delayed departure time, there were also 40 flights at Tan Son Nhat Airport that had to be canceled due to bad weather, accounting for a rate of 3.63% of the total flights operated.
