Vietnam air passenger traffic surges on global recovery prospects

Vietnam's air passenger traffic in the first two months of 2023 surged 91.5% year on year, with the most significant increases recorded for international travelers, Vietnam News Agency cited the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam as reporting on Wednesday. Passenger traffic jumped to nearly 20m in the January-February period as global airline traffic is on the way to full recovery, data showed. Vietnamese airports handled 4.7m international passengers, up 20-fold from that in the same period last year, while the number of domestic passengers increased 48% to 14.8m, according to the aviation regulator. The IATA expected this year's international passenger traffic to surge to 80% of the pre-pandemic levels after global air traffic recovered to 68.5% of 2019 levels last year. Vietnam's aviation industry is set to fully recover by the end of this year when the number of passengers and cargo transported by air this year in the Southeast Asian country will rise 45.4% and 15% from 2022 respectively, or up 1% and 14.8% over the pre-pandemic period in 2019, said the global aviation body.<br/>