AirAsia’s Vietnam venture grounded
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This comes just a month after AirAsia chief executive officer Tony Fernandes and Pham Thanh Binh – chairman and chief executive officer of Vinashin, the country’s largest shipbuilder – signed a letter of intent to establish Vina AirAsia.
Under the agreement, AirAsia will own a 30 percent stake in the joint venture, with the shipbuilder holding the rest. The airline was slated to have an initial fleet of nine aircraft.
A VietnamNet Bridge report claimed that some domestic airlines, including Vietnam Airlines and Pacific Airlines, did not ‘play fair’ by lodging a proposal to the government not to grant the licence to Vina Air Asia.
According to the report, Vietnam Airlines’ Director General and Chairman Nguyen Sy Hung had told the media that the national air carrier protested the joint venture project because “Vietnam should not be so easy on issues relating to commercial freedom”.
Hung was quoted saying that said that Vietnam Airlines itself still could not get the right to fly from Beijing to Moscow though it applied for that a long time ago. He added that the US does not allow foreign airlines to fly domestic routes due to security problems.
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