Vietnam’s aviation safety gets approval for US flight

Bloomberg

The US Federal Aviation Administration gave its approval to Vietnam’s air-safety system, which will allow the Southeast Asian country’s airlines to fly to the US as it seeks to bolster tourism. Vietnam’s national carrier is planning flights to California.
The FAA gave Vietnam a Category 1 rating, meaning US reviewers found that the country adheres to United Nations standards for licensing pilots and overseeing
airline operations and sa-fety, the agency said in a press release.
“The Category 1 status announced is based on an August 2018 FAA assessment of the safety oversight provided by the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam,” the FAA said in its statement.
The FAA hadn’t previously assessed Vietnam’s aviation regulation system.
Vietnam Airlines JSC for years has planned flights to the US West Coast, home to a large population of Vietnamese-Americans. The carrier is considering a Ho Chi Minh City-San Francisco flight to be its first US route, Chief Executive Duong Tri Thanh said in May.
President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are planning on meeting in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, on February 27 and 28 for their second summit. Not only can a Vietnamese airline now apply to fly to the US, but carriers can also enter into so-called code-share agreements with other airlines to book passengers on each other’s flights.
A Vietnam-US route, which could provide a marketing bonanza for the nation’s tourism industry, would probably be a money-loser for Vietnam Airlines or any other local airline because of fiercely competitive routes linking the two countries.
“Having flights to the US is symbolic, prestigious,” said Brendan Sobie, a Singapore-based analyst at CAPA Centre for Aviation.