VietJet applies for Australian AOC for domestic ops - report

By Andrew Curran.

Vietnamese low-cost carrier VietJet Air is attempting to secure an Australian air operator certificate (AOC) with a view to launching domestic flights in the country, according to the Australian Financial Review.

The report says the airline has applied to Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) for an AOC and initially plans to introduce ten B737 aircraft into the Australian market.

Earlier this month, Analytic Flying flagged the allocation of 2,252 slot pairs at Sydney Airport (SYD) to an anonymous airline for the upcoming southern summer season. The allocation equates to seven daily slot pairs at Australia’s busiest airport.

The VietJet Group, which is owned by Sovico Holdings, HDBank and other institutional investors, has interests in three airlines – Vietnam’s VietJet Air, Thai VietJet and VietJet Qazaqstan. The latter two carriers are jointly owned with local investment partners.

Unlike some countries, Australia places no restrictions on foreign ownership of domestic airlines. Foreign entities are permitted to own and operate domestic airlines, provided they meet Australia's regulatory and safety certification requirements.

Aero South Pacific has approached VietJet Air for comment.

An established operator in the Australian market

VietJet Air is already well established in the Australian market, operating international services to Sydney, Melbourne (MEL), Brisbane (BNE) and Perth (PER).

The airline’s fleet of 133 aircraft is primarily made up of Airbus narrow-body aircraft, although it also operates a small sub-fleet of eight A330-300s and ten B737-8s.

However, the VietJet Group also has a further one hundred and ninety one B737 MAX aircraft on order with Boeing, in addition to a similarly sized Airbus order book.

VietJet Air is not the only airline eyeing Australia’s domestic aviation market, which includes some of the busiest city pairs in the world. Home-grown operators Koala Airlines and ZINC have both flagged plans to launch services, although whether either airline ultimately gets off the ground remains uncertain.

Established foreign operators such as AirAsia have also previously expressed interest in launching domestic Australian services.

Unlike many start-up proposals, VietJet Air’s can be taken seriously because it is an established operator with a solid safety and financial track record. Barring the pandemic period, the airline has always adopted an expansionary position – sometimes aggressively so. It has a large pipeline of new aircraft coming in and they need to be deployed somewhere. An Australian carrier could soak up some of that capacity.

Photo: VietJet Air

Contact the writer: andrew@aerosouthpacific.com