Page 30 - Forbes - Asia (October 2019)
P. 30
ASIA’S POWER BUSINESSWOMEN
Vietjet Academy in
Saigon Hi-Tech Park
serves as a center
for aviation research
and training.
Thao has already proven she Anticipating
can overcome barriers. Her airline,
founded in 2007, is now bigger than further growth,
flag carrier Vietnam Airlines as mea- VietJet has ordered
sured by passengers carried. She grew
in part through audacious service, by 386 new airplanes.
dressing flight attendants in bikinis for
flights to beach-holiday destinations.
The stunt resulted in a fine from the sengers AirAsia, Asia’s leading budget
government, but garnered worldwide carrier, carried last year, Vietjet has
free publicity for Vietjet and, most been growing faster than the Malaysian
importantly, sold tickets. budget carrier. THE KEY TO VIETJET’S SUCCESS is
From just a handful of domestic Vietjet’s revenue climbed 27% to keeping costs low by packing more pas-
routes when it launched, Vietjet has 54 trillion dong ($2.3 billion) in 2018, sengers into its planes. Vietjet operates
slowly expanded to 80 aircraft servic- while AirAsia’s revenue rose 9% to 10.6 at a unit cost of 2.3 U.S. cents per avail-
ing 120 destinations. “Our strategy is to billion ringgit ($2.5 billion). This year, able seat kilometer (ASK), the indus-
expand to any regional market within Vietjet expects to grow even faster, try’s measure of efficiency. That figure
a radius of 2,500 kilometers,” she says, projecting it will carry 30 million pas- makes AirAsia’s 3.1 cents per ASK look
“so we can create bases that cover half sengers, up 30% from last year. “We flabby (U.S. full service carriers average
of the world population.” positioned Vietjet as a regional and in- about 7 cents). Vietjet aims to squeeze
In 2017, Vietjet debuted on the Ho ternational carrier from the very begin- even more people into its new, narrow-
Chi Minh City Stock Exchange with a ning,” says Thao, 49. The two airlines body Airbus A321neo airplanes. When
market capitalization of $1.4 billion. have an intertwined history. AirAsia the first A321neo arrives in November,
The next year, Vietjet transported 23 originally tried to partner with Vietjet it will have 240 seats. Most airlines
million passengers, accounting for 46% in 2010 to enter Vietnam’s domestic outfit the A321neo with no more than
of Vietnam’s passenger market. While air market, only to pull the plug on the 180—giving Vietjet a third more pas-
that’s about half of the 44 million pas- deal in 2011. sengers per aircraft.
28 | FORBES ASIA OCTOBER 2019
