Flying Above the War

While the disastrous and seemingly endless war has disrupted South Viet Nam's fragile economy, it has increased the business of at least one company: the government-controlled commercial airline, Air Viet Nam. More and more Vietnamese travel or send their goods by air in order to avoid Viet Cong terror on roads and railroads.

With a motley of piston-powered planes, from puddle-hopping Cessnas to long-range DC-6s, and a single French Caravelle jet, Air Viet Nam last year boosted its freight tonnage 50% and its passenger loads 30% (to 305,000) on flights throughout the country and to Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore. Lately the company has expanded its modest fleet to 23 planes by chartering DC-3s from Taipei's China Air Lines and other planes from Air France (which has a 20.5% stake in Air Viet).

Even with the new planes, says President Nguyen Van Khai, 60, "we are short of planes, short of pilots and short of space." Air Viet has obtained Chinese crews along with the planes from Formosa, started to hire U.S. civilian pilots, and persuaded the Saigon government to lend it the part-time services of four Vietnamese Air Force C-47 pilots. Of course, the shortages could quickly end if peace came to the country. Unlikely as that seems in the foreseeable future, the company fears being caught with excess capacity, hence the cautious policy of chartering rather than buying planes. Despite the added expenses of chartering, the company's average domestic passenger rate of 4.7-c- a mile is about 20% lower than equivalent rates in the U.S. Air Viet has operated in the black for four years without any direct government subsidy, this year expects to exceed 1964's record earnings of $500,000.

Flying under wartime conditions is predictably difficult. Because civilian travel is banned at night, all flights must be crammed into daylight hours. At Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airport, the company's planes must queue up on the runways and wait their turn with long lines of Vietnamese Skyraiders and U.S. jet fighters, revving up for missions against the Reds. But the company has compiled a fair record of promptness and safety (one crash, in 1962), and its cabin service is noted in the Far East. First-class passengers dine on steaks, French wines and cheeses, served by multilingual hostesses in flowing blue and white gowns; one of the girls last year married South Viet Nam's current Premier, Nguyen Cao Ky.

The amenities above are not enough to make the passengers forget the war below. Viet Cong snipers occasionally pepper the planes--but have failed to bring any of them down. On a recent flight between Saigon and Danang, passengers in the high-flying Caravelle stared down in fascination at U.S. Phantom jets making low-level passes at the jungle-covered Viet Cong.

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