Passengers of regular international air routes that Vietnam is planning to reopen later this month will be mainly Vietnamese citizens and foreign experts and skilled laborers, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The transport ministry had convened meetings with relevant authorities and agencies regarding its plan to resume air routes to six internaitonal destinaitons before submitting a detailed report to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Accordingly, the ministry proposed that regular flights between Vietnam and China, Japan, and South Korea be operated from September 15, while flights between the Southeast Asian country and Laos, Cambodia, and Taiwan will resume from September 22.

Passengers of these routes will be diplomats, officials, Vietnamese citizens who wish to return home, Vietnamese citizens who travel for work, and foreign experts, skilled laborers, investors, and employees of key projects.

Vietnamese citizens arriving in Vietnam will be quarantined for 14 days and tested for COVID-19 twice.

They will have to pay for their quarantine cost, while their COVID-19 tests are free of charge.

Foreign experts, skilled laborers, investors, and employees of key projects who conduct business trips longer than 14 days must also undergo quarantine and tests following their arrival in the Southeast Asian country.

They will be required to pay for the costs of both quarantine and COVID-19 screening.

Foreign experts, skilled laborers, investors, and employees of key projects who intend to stay in Vietnam for less than 14 days will not be quarantined upon their arrival.

However, they must be tested for COVID-19 by authorized agencies three to five days before their arrival, and are only allowed to fly to Vietnam if the results come back negative.

The Ministry of Transport expects that up to 2,200 passengers will arrive in Hanoi, 2,450 in Ho Chi Minh City, and 400 in Can Tho City on a weekly basis when all these international air routes are reopened.

Vietnam began barring entry to foreign nationals on March 22 and suspended international flights from March 25 in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19. 

Since then, charter flights to the country have only been arranged to bring in experts, skilled workers, and diplomats, and to repatriate Vietnamese citizens stranded in other nations and territories due to the pandemic.

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