Vietnam Airlines plans four-times-weekly flights to Los Angeles in the USA after receiving an okay to fly there from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Vietnam Airlines ceo Duong Tri Thanh reportedly said Los Angeles would be followed by daily flights to the US West Coast.

 

Vietnam's Vietjet and Bamboo Airways also have indicated an interest in flights to the US.

 

The Vietnam Air announcement came after the FAA gave Vietnam a Category 1 safety rating, which allows local airlines to operate direct flights to the US.

 

However: "Acquiring this rating is hard, keeping it is going to be even harder," Dinh Viet Thang, head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), told local media VnExpress.

 

He said the CAAV currently has only 30 aviation safety officers, meeting only 30 per cent of demand. It hires the rest from other airlines.

 

The FAA has told the CAAV it must have enough aviation safety officers of its own and CAAV says it plans to meet this goal by 2025.

 

However, training these officers is costly, VnExpress said, costing US$216,000 per trainee.