Airports around Vietnam welcomed 3.65 million foreign passengers in February, a year-on-year increase of 59.1 per cent, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV).

During the seven-day Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, from February 8-14, over 1.5 million passengers traveled by air, including 748,600 foreigners, up 54 per cent year-on-year.

The rapid growth in the number of foreign passengers early in the year is expected to help the aviation sector recover during 2024.

The CAAV has forecast that Vietnam’s aviation market will carry nearly 80.3 million passengers and 1.16 million tons of cargo in 2024, year-on-year increases of 7.1 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively.

The total number of international passengers is estimated at 41.8 million, a year-on-year rise of 30.6 per cent.

Airports welcomed 32 million foreign passengers last year, a 1.7-fold rise compared to 2022 and up 77 per cent compared to 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic.