Vietnam domestic airfares hit six-year low with tickets from $25

Flights between HCMC and the southern island of Phu Quoc on weekdays in the last week of July now cost around VND650,000, including taxes and fees, a level not seen since the Covid-19 pandemic. For August, the same price is still available but in a smaller number of flights.

For flights between HCMC and Nha Trang and Tuy Hoa, both popular tourist destinations in the central region, prices start from VND700,000, also lowest in years.

Some domestic routes have seen prices falling 50-60% year-on-year, urging customers to opt for air travel.

Hang, who lives in HCMC, said her family of four initially planned to travel by train or bus and boat to Phu Quoc to save money. However, after checking airfares, she decided to book round-trip tickets at a total cost of more than VND5 million this month.

“This is the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic that I have been able to buy cheap tickets even when the departure date was close,” she said.

Nguyen Van Thanh, owner of an air ticket agency in HCMC, said this could be the sharpest domestic airfare reduction in about two years and mark the summer season with the lowest average ticket prices in around six years.

According to Thanh, since early July, when airlines simultaneously introduced low-cost fare tiers, the number of customers booking tickets at his agency has doubled compared with the previous month.

If these prices remain available in July and August, demand for air travel is likely to rise sharply, he added.

Airlines said the price reductions are aimed at stimulating demand because consumer spending has yet to recover as expected. In addition, cooling fuel costs have created more room for airlines to lower ticket prices.

According to the Jet Fuel Price Monitor report by the International Air Transport Association and S&P Global Platts, the average price of Jet A-1 fuel in last week of June stood at $116.63 per barrel, about 40% below the peak recorded in April.

In addition, from July 1, the Vietnamese government continued extending preferential import tax, environmental protection tax and value-added tax measures for gasoline, oil products and aviation fuel until September 30, 2026. The policy has helped reduce input costs for aviation companies.

Alongside lower fares, airlines have also increased capacity during the peak summer travel season.

Vietjet Air increased domestic flight frequencies from HCMC and Hanoi to tourist destinations by about 30%, bringing total operations to more than 500 flights per day and approximately 8.8 million seats during the summer.

Vietnam Airlines Group, which includes Vietnam Airlines, Pacific Airlines and VASCO, plans to provide nearly 5.5 million seats across its network from now until mid-August, up about 16% from the same period last year.

Its domestic network alone will include more than 28,300 flights with nearly 3 million seats. A company representative said low-cost fares currently account for around 40% of seats available for sale on domestic routes.

Airports nationwide served 63.7 million passengers in the first six months of the year, up 6% year-on-year, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam.

International air passengers totaled 10.12 million, up 11.4% and accounting for around 82.6% of all international visitors to Vietnam.