The information has just been announced at the extraordinary general meeting of the Vietnam Airlines Corporation held on Tuesday.
At the meeting, Vietnam Airlines shareholders approved seven solutions for restructuring the company during the 2021-2025 period.
Some of the main solutions included negotiating cheaper plane charter services, selling old planes, and adjusting investment lists.
Vietnam Airlines would also issue more shares and seek more capital from other channels.
According to the company's report, it saved VND5.12 trillion from cutting costs in 2020 and expected to save VND 6 trillion in 2021. Besides cutting costs, the company has also tried to raise revenues by operating repatriation flights or flights carrying foreign experts and cargo.
Tran Thanh Hien, the airline's chief accountant said that they have been harder hit by Covid-19 pandemic this year compared to 2020 and are facing "very bad financial problems".
CEO Le Hong Ha said that the domestic market was now very important to the company but had also been badly affected by the recent virus outbreaks.
Vietnam Airlines CEO Le Hong Ha speaks at the meeting
"We’ve seen only between 62-65 percent of seats being filled on the Hanoi - HCM City route after the flight numbers were increased to 16 flights daily, compared to the rate of 95 percent earlier," Ha said.
Talking about plans for 2022, Vietnam Airlines CEO said that they expected air transportation to regain between 70-75 percent and international air transport up by between 20-25 percent of 2019's figure before the Covid-19 pandemic arrived.
"The International Air Transport Association IATA has forecasted that the domestic and international air markets will fully recover by the end of 2023 and 2024, respectively," he said.
Ha added that the airline would need to restructure its fleet to reduce costs and have more modern aircraft.
"We'll negotiate with partners to agree better charter fees," he said. "The airline now has a total of 104 aircraft and we would sell those of 12 years old or more. We sold nine A321 and 6 AT72 craft in 2019 and want to sell 12 more A312 aircraft between 2022-2023."
