From: Nhan Tran <tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com>
Subject: NEWS: US airlines scramble for a foothold in VN
Originator: daemon@media.mit.edu
Reply-To: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com
Organization: N/A
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 23:09:31 GMT


U.S. AIRLINES SCRAMBLE FOR A FOOTHOLD IN VIETNAM

    By Kathleen Callo
    HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, April 14, Reuter - Delta Airlines, one of several
U.S. carriers scrambling to gain a foothold in Vietnam, has invited the head of
Vietnam Airlines and the Minister of Trade and Tourism to visit the United
States.
    A Vietnam Airlines group invited to visit later this month would be the
first official Vietnamese business delegation to visit the United States since
the Vietnam War, said William Henderson, managing director of Group Systems
International, a U.S. company handling Delta ticket sales in Asia.
    A trade embargo imposed by Washington on Hanoi in 1964 and extended to a
reunified nation in 1975 defines Vietnam as an enemy and forbids U.S. companies
from doing business there.
    Washington said last October it was ready to move towards lifting the
embargo and resuming diplomatic ties with Hanoi. It said on Monday it would
modify the embargo to allow the establishment of telecommunications links.
    Several U.S. airlines have been getting ready to establish a foothold in
Vietnam.
    Delta has invited three Vietnamese delegations to visit this year, Henderson
told reporters in Ho Chi Minh City.
    Director-general of state-run Vietnam Airlines, Nguyen Hong Nhi, has been
invited to Delta headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia for 10 days in early May,
Henderson said on Sunday.
    Delta hoped to arrange for the delegation, which would include Vietnamese
transportation officials, to meet U.S. transportation officials in Washington,
he said.
    Vietnam has opened air links in recent years with France, Australia, Germany
and many non-communist Asian countries. A growing number of the one million
Vietnamese living in the United States have been going home to visit and do
business.
    Delta has invited Vietnamese Trade and Tourism Minister Le Van Triet to
Atlanta, Los Angeles and Washington as part of a third trip, Henderson said.
    The chairman of United Airlines, Stephen Wolf, visited Hanoi recently to see
if Vietnam would provide United with landing rights if the embargo were lifted,
the Los Angeles Times reported recently.
    "The talks were positive and cordial," the newspaper quoted Lawrence Nagin,
a senior vice president at United, as saying.
    Other U.S. carriers have tried to ease their way into Vietnam with charter
deals since last year, flying Vietnamese emigrants and refugees to the United
States.
    Under an agreement between Hanoi and Washington, Vietnam has allowed
hundreds of thousands of people, including an expected 100,000 this year, to
resettle in the United States under its Orderly Departure Programme (ODP).
    Northwest Airlines was the first U.S. carrier to return to Vietnam since
1975 when the war ended, transporting ODP emigrants from Ho Chi Minh City to
Bangkok last year, under charter by the International Organisation for Migration
(IOM).
    Hawaiian Airlines set another precedent when it made the first two direct
flights from Vietnam to the United States in August 1991, carrying former
re-education camp detainees and their families to the United States under ODP.
    Washington gave the carriers special permission to deal with Vietnam because
of the humanitarian nature of the flights.
    The real breakthrough came when American Trans Air, a charter company, flew
7,500 people on 21 direct ODP flights from Ho Chi Minh City to San Francisco and
Los Angeles between December, 1991 and March, 1992, said Anthony Newman, head of
IOM in Ho Chi Minh City.
    The number of people leaving Vietnam for the United States under ODP soared
to 8,300 in March from 7,963 in February and a monthly record of 9,622 in
January, Newman said.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese