December 09, 2016 | 13:56 (GMT+7)
Vietnam Airlines celebrates its 20 millionth passenger
PANO – The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and the Vietnam Air Traffic Management Corporation (VATM) held a ceremony to welcome the 20 millionth passenger aboard the 700,000th flight in 2016 on December 7 in Hanoi.
The lucky passenger is Mamoru Kato from Japan, the 19,999,999th is Oda Junichi from Japan and the 20,000,001th is Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy from Vietnam. These passengers were aboard the flight numbered VN311 from Japan’s Narita to Hanoi.
Speaking at the event, Deputy Transport Minister Nguyen Nhat congratulated the achievements of the carrier and VATM over the past years and highly valued the administration, management and servicing of transport passengers of the civil aviation sector of Vietnam.
In 2016, the carrier was certified as a four-star airline by the UK-based airline and airport rating organization SkyTrax and welcomed Japan’s ANA Holdings as its strategic shareholder.
The carrier successfully operated new fleets of Boeing 787-9 and Airbus A350 and expects to transport 20.6 million passengers in this year. In addition, the VATM is estimated to operate more than 742,000 flights in 2016, up by 16 percent year-on-year.
Translated by Thuy Duong