Promote Vietnam Service Flight Brand

People’s Army Newspaper Online – Compared with the world, Vietnam service flight industry is still relatively young. However, with the rapid development of the country, flight service sector has grown constantly, both in material and human resources and operational scale. The demonstration of capacity and brand has increased the influence of Vietnam flight service in the cause of building and defending the country, as well as international integration. 

Modern aircraft of VNH

Prestige and quality of every flight

 EC155B1 helicopter of the Northern Helicopter Company bringing employees of



Oil and Gas Company to the rig.

 The Southern Helicopter Company (VNHSOUTH) has currently performed approximately 80% flight plan of VNH. 100% of pilots here were approved commercial pilots by Vietnam Airlines; many pilots have international license. VNHSOUTH ensures absolute safety for the flights. Colonel Vi Cong Dung, Director of VNHSOUTH said: "Petroleum Customers are hard to please. We regularly have to fly in the complicated conditions, so each flight must be prepared carefully. All components must work with the highest sense of responsibility." In 2011, the South Vietnam Helicopter Company has performed over 13,800 safe flight hours, reaching the revenue of nearly 1,800 billion, completing 123% business plan. Until now, the company has achieved more than 40% plan of flight hours of 2012.

Since 2020, the demand for flight services at home and abroad shall be increased, including the flight for polling and exploration of oil and gas, emergency flight, flight for search and rescue, flight for travel, flight for pulling crane and so on. The flight service shall also be invested in new aircraft to add more modern. In this situation, the development strategy of VNH is to train high-quality human resources, with a focus on training in the training center and self-training in helicopter companies.

Colonel Nguyen Van Vinh, Director of Training Center said: "Currently, our organization of training and coaching has professional and high quality, especially training pilots, technicians, flight service employees for oil and gas. Training center shall help familiarize the crew with the continental ocean and other types of terrain in our country."

In the past, if we wanted to train good pilots, technicians, we often had to send to other countries such as England, France, Norway, Car-a-rounds with Australia, the United States and so on with a very high cost. Training costs in the country fell from 30 to 40% compared to the outgoing foreign, while ensuring professional qualifications, as well as foreign language ability. Teachers of the training center are all experienced and trained, can perform transfer of training, the main driver training, teacher training, and transfer flight. The center also performs intensive training for the ground component for required tasks. By 2015, VNH shall strive to build a Flight Training Center into Flight Training School in the area. From 2007 until now, the center has performed 5 training courses for 29 pilots of the Air Force Officer School and Navy pilots. The pilots of the Air Force Officer School just need to learn 5-7 modules on English theory, accumulating 150 flight hours, including 40 hours of advanced flight (IFR) eligible to receive a commercial pilot license (CPL). After graduation, the pilots shall easily learn to transfer to operate other modern aircrafts of Eurocopter such as EC155B, EC225 and so on.

From now until 2020, VNH should have 60 to 70 good pilots to replace the old generation and exploit new aircraft. In addition to training at the training center and flight companies, VNH shall send a number of pilots, technicians, service employees to developed countries to exchange and learn from experience. Major Nguyen Van Tuong, Captain of the Crew 2 VNHSOUTH said: "Training in the country, combined with training abroad shall create a good team of pilots, technicians and service employees. They are a source of labor for service flight industry for the following years. "

Many people shall be surprised as to be known that many pilots of Vietnam Helicopter Corporation are invited to serve in foreign countries. In fact, the crew of VNH has served for many years. During the integration period and the current development, flight services in home and aboard are very interested by VNH.

Recently, VNH has attempted to exploit worldwide markets of flight services such as sightseeing, travel, emergency in Norway, India; polling and exploitation of oil and gas in Malaysia, East Timor. In the end of November 2011, VNHSOUTH had signed a contract with the Helistar Company - Cambodia, to provide emergency services for CNOOC Oil Company of China. Maj. Gen. Ha Tien Dung said: "Customers in the region are believed to pilots, flight of our employees. It is our faith to reach out to worldwide markets of flight services ".

Article: Le Phi Hung

Photo: Nguyen Dinh Tien