The work would be carried out at night so that flights are not affected, Nguyen Huy Duong, deputy director of the airport, said.

S3 was temporarily closed on August 9 on safety grounds, but was partially reopenedon August 19, Noi Bai authorities said.

A section of the runway 1B also needs repairs, and so will only be used between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. between September 11 and 13.

Potholes of up to a meter and cracks of 30-50 centimeters were found on the runway this month, the authorities said.

The Vietnamese airline has also announced that it will use Airbus A320/A321 aircraft for the flights, which take around three hours.

Taipei, a political, economic, and cultural center of Taiwan, was ranked the fifth leading emerging city in the world by a study carried out in 2017 by Chicago-based real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle.

The new route is part of Vietjet’s plan to expand its flight network and provide more traveling opportunities for Vietnamese and Taiwanese residents, Jay Lingeswara, the carrier’s international sales and distribution director, said in a press release.

Da Nang has become a top travel choice of Taiwanese visitors. Last year, the central coastal city, home to the beautiful My Khe Beach and a neighbor of the UNESCO heritage site of Hoi An, welcomed 36,400 tourists from Taiwan, up 30 percent from 2017, according to the city tourism department.

The number of foreigners arriving in Da Nang in January-July was 1.9 million, up 11.2 percent year-on-year, with some of the biggest source markets including Taiwan, Germany, India, Malaysia and France posting big growth. The number of visitors from Taiwan increased by 86 percent.

Earlier this year, the New York Times ranked Da Nang among 52 best places to go in 2019, dubbing it “the Miami of Vietnam.”

The vacancy rate in the central Vietnam destinations of Da Nang, Hoi An, Hue, and Phan Thiet is hovering around 50 percent on average, according to Agoda, a global online accommodation reservations provider.

On Traveloka, one of the leading flight and hotel booking platforms in Southeast Asia, a number of places in the ancient imperial capital of Hue like Gold Hotel Hue, Hotel La Perle, Cherry Hotel, and Huong Giang Hotel still have rooms for VND600,000 ($26) to VND1.4 million ($60) per night.

In Da Nang, the occupancy rate is abnormally low due to the city’s shortage of water. High salinity levels in the Cau Do (Red Bridge) River, the main source of freshwater for a million residents and tourists in Da Nang, mean the city can only meet 70 percent of its water needs.

Some hotels are refusing to accept bookings because they do not have enough water. At Melia Danang Beach Resort, the number of room bookings by Vietnamese between August 30 and September 2, the National Day, is only 10 percent.

Some hotel managers in Da Nang, a top tourist attraction, said tourists booking hotel rooms during the holiday weekend are mainly from South Korea, Japan and mainland China.

Da Nang is well-known for its beautiful beaches. Photo by VnExpress/Nguyen Dong.

The average occupancy rate of hotels in Vung Tau, a popular vacation destination in southern Vietnam, is also 50 percent, while it is 85 percent at some high-end hotels and resorts like Pullman, Malibu and Green Hotel.

Tu Le, a teacher working in HCMC’s District 1, said she booked two rooms facing the sea at Leman Cap Resort & Spa in the southern beach town, and the rates were not much higher than normal.

Bookings seem tougher at hotels in Da Lat. Most hotels and resorts in the Central Highlands resort town have been fully booked up ahead of the holiday.

Bao Lam, 32, a bank employee in Ho Chi Minh City, said he was unable to get a family room in a luxury hotel in Da Lat.

Nomad Home Dalat and Elegant Dalat Hotel, two of Da Lat’s most popular hotels, only have one or two double rooms available and they cost around VND1.2 million ($52) each per night, according to Booking.com, a travel fare aggregator and travel metasearch engine for hotel reservations.

Da Lat was once a summer hideout for French officials during the colonial time who built villas in the hills to escape the heat and humidity of the lowlands. Photo by VnExpress/Tran Quang Anh.

Pham Van Bay, Deputy Director of Vietravel Hanoi, said since the National Day holiday this year is not long, most people have opted for domestic tours, with northern mountainous destinations like Moc Chau, Sa Pa, Cao Bang, and Ha Giang being very popular.

Pham Cao Vy, chairman of the Sa Pa Tourism Association, said most hotels have kept their rates unchanged though it could be a bit difficult for travelers to find a place.

National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines and low-cost carrier Jetstar Pacific have said they would add a total of 240,000 seats on domestic routes from August 30 to September 2 to meet the increased travel demand.

A video capturing the beauty of Vietnam from north to south

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has submitted this conclusion to the Ministry of Transport after an appraisal of the plan to establish Vietravel Airlines, deputy head of CAAV Vo Huy Cuong told VnExpress Thursday.

With Vietravel Airlines, the tour operator plans to provide charter flights for its own customers travelling to tourist destinations. The airline will operate 3 aircraft by 2020 and 8 by 2024, according to Vietravel’s proposal.

According to CAAV, the planned growth of Vietravel Airlines’ fleet is in line with demand from Vietnam’s other aircraft operators as well as overall national aviation plans.

Vietravel Airlines’ model to operate a charter fleet serving its own customers should be encouraged, as no other enterprise in Vietnam has this model, CAAV said in its report. Currently, around 30 travel companies in the world, including TNT Vacations (U.S.) and Nord Wind (Russia), operate their own aircraft, the report noted.

However, CAAV also warned that there are potential difficulties in Vietravel choosing secondary airports in Vietnam for its network, because tourists often come from central locations such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang.

In the event its planned charter flights end up being inefficient, Vietravel Airlines will likely be forced to operate and park overnight at major airports such as Noi Bai (Hanoi), Tan Son Nhat (HCMC) and Da Nang airports, putting further strain on an already overloaded infrastructure.

Vietravel needs to develop flexible flight plans if it wants to operate at these main airports, as the company will have difficulty booking slots as a new market entrant into the market, the CAAV report cautioned.

However, it also said that Vietravel’s proposal to headquarter its airline in Phu Bai Airport, central Hue Town, is in line with national infrastructure development plans, which envisages an upgrade to the airport between 2020 and 2030, with additional landing slots and parking space.

Vietravel already organizes charter flights with partners. In the last two years it has been operating around 300 flights a year, both domestic and international.

Vietnam currently has 6 airlines: Vietnam Airlines, budget carriers Vietjet Air and Jetstar Pacific, the Vietnam Air Services Company or VASCO, Bamboo Airways, and newly-licensed Vietstar Airlines, a military-run company.

Last year, the aviation industry served some 50 million passengers, up 10.1 percent from 2017.

The 2019 Passport Index, commissioned by Arton Capital, a global financial advisory firm based in Singapore, shows that people holding a Vietnamese passport has free access to 61 countries and territories, compared to 56 last year.

The index ranks passports of 199 countries and territories based on the number of countries the holder can visit without first obtaining a visa or applying for one on entry.

In Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese passport is only more powerful than Laos and Myanmar.

Singapore and Malaysia have the most powerful passports in the region with the former ranking 4th with visa exemption from 166 countries and the latter standing 9th with 161 countries.

Cambodia has moved up two places from last year to 71 with visa free access to 63 destinations.

Thailand has witnessed drastic improvement in its global ranking to claim the 52nd position. Thais can now travel to 85 countries and territories without applying for a visa, slightly higher than Indonesians with visa-free access to 81 destinations.

The United Arab Emirates has managed to secure its throne with the most powerful passport in the world, whose citizens are able to visit 173 of 199 countries and territories without applying for a visa.

Finland, Luxembourg and Spain shared the second place, with their citizens able to visit 168 destinations without applying for a visa.

Enjoying visa-free access to 167 destinations, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. came in third.

The American passport has lagged behind the UAE and is no longer the strongest in the world since the Donald Trump administration began pursuing a hardline immigration policy.

People from poor, conflict-torn Somalia, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have the weakest passports, with visa free access to just 29-38 countries and territories.

As more Vietnamese join the middle class, they are increasingly looking outward for travel destinations.

A World Bank report in 2017 said the country is seeing an increasing number of people, estimated at 1.5 million each year, join the ranks of the middle and upper classes.

“As Vietnam’s economy grows, and an increasing number of citizens join the ranks of the global middle and upper classes, more people are going to take an interest in traveling the world,” said Sean Preston, Visa’s country manager for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

According to Mastercard, Vietnam has the second fastest growing outbound market in the Asia Pacific region after Myanmar, with projected annual growth of 9.5 percent between 2016 and 2021