First US plane lands in Vietnam in almost 30 years

A US aircraft with both US and Vietnamese officials, business people and ordinary persons on board landed Ho Chi Minh City in nearly three decades since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

The United Airlines flight 869, using a Boeing 747-400 aircraft with 347 seats, arrived at the Tan Son Nhat international airport on Friday evening, after 20-hour flight departing from the US city of San Francisco.

In 1975, the last US commercial flight, a Pan Am carrier, left Ho Chi Minh City (called Saigon at that time), and Vietnam has imposed a ban on US carriers for landing in the country since then.

The new daily service of the United Airlines is one result of the improving ties between Vietnam and the United States.

"Vietnam-US ties have recently improved, and are progressing towards full normalization in both political and economic domains and expanding beyond. A direct air route between Vietnam and the United States will meet the increasing demand for exchange between the two peoples," Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman, Le Dung, said on Thursday.

The inaugural flight from Ho Chi Minh City to San Francisco is scheduled on December 11. Under an agreement reached by the Vietnamese and US governments, the United Airlines will also be permitted to carry passengers locally between Ho Chi Minh City and Chinese Hong Kong.

Under the Air Services Agreement approved by Vietnam in December 2003, only two US and two Vietnamese passenger airlines can fly between the two countries for the first two years.

According to a recent forecast of the International Air Transport Association, Vietnam's aviation industry will annually grow 10.5 percent in the next 10 years after recording annual growth of 29.5 percent in the 1985-1999 period.

Source: Xinhua