United Parcel Service and Vietnam Airlines sign cooperation agreement

United Parcel Service and Vietnam Airlines sign cooperation agreement
covering chartered flights between Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and cities in
the US, Asia and Europe
>From VIETNAM INVESTMENT REVIEW, March 12th, 2001
ORIGINAL TITLE: UPS strikes deal with national airline.

FULLTEXT:

By Pham Nguyen

THE US express carrier United Parcel Service, better known as UPS, has
signed
a commercial cooperation agreement with Vietnam Airlines to open new
chartered
flights linking Ho Chi Minh City with big cities in Asia, Europe and the
US.

Under the agreement, UPS will operate a Boeing-757F aircraft with
commercial
cargo capacity of 35 tonnes, using the operational rights of Vietnam
Airlines
which is responsible for marketing and sales.

“The agreement is expected to set a foundation for long-term cooperation
between UPS and Vietnam Airlines,” said Charles A. Adam, president of UPS
in
the Asia Pacific region.

“The strategic alliance leverages the strength of both companies to provide
additional airlift capacity from the fast emerging Vietnamese market,”
said
Adam, maintaining that Vietnam was an emerging market whose air transport
demand would grow significantly in the near future.

UPS is to fly cargo once a week from Ho Chi Minh City to Taiwan’s Taipei,
its
Asian transit hub, before flying to Osaka and Tokyo, as well as Germany
and
the US.

Previously UPS had to cooperate with passenger airlines to transport their
packages to and from Vietnam. “We prefer establishing cooperation ties
with
Asian carriers and transport operators as this benefits both,” said Adam,
adding that UPS would also invest in domestic transport companies in
Vietnam’s
major cities. He also expected the Vietnam-US trade pact to stimulate
growth
in the volume of trade flowing between the two countries.

Meanwhile, an official from Vietnam Airlines said the cooperation would
help
the country’s flagship carrier approach the US market, where fast growth
in
air transport demand was visible.

He said UPS and Vietnam Airlines had operated several flights on the route
ahead of the official inauguration.

UPS begun operating in Vietnam in April 1994, shortly after the US lifted
its
embargo on Vietnam. The company serves the market through an agency
partnership Saigon Post Office and Hanoi Post Office. The carrier freights
around 200 packages from Vietnam daily.

Henry Ng, general manager of UPS Vietnam, said the domestic air transport
market was estimated to increase twofold on an annual basis.

Vietnam Airlines, meanwhile, said air cargo output increased 13 per cent
last
year compared to 1999, with the carrier alone transporting 43,000 tonnes
of
cargo in 2000.

UPS is present in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Its
turnover was posted at $27.05 billion in 1999 and $29.7 billion last year.

Another US express carrier, FedEx, has also signed an agreement with
Vietnam
Air Services Company (Vasco) to charter flights from Ho Chi Minh City.

ISSN 1021-318X; Page 10

Copyright 2001 Vietnam Investment Review Ltd.

(c) 2001 Resp. DB Svcs. All rts. reserv.
$$
VIETNAM INVESTMENT REVIEW, 12th March 2001