Challenges and opportunities of Air Cargo sector in Vietnam

Abstract

This qualitative research aims at exploring the challenges and opportunities of the Air Cargo Market in Vietnam under the insight of the air freight forwarders. By comparing the available studies and knowledge with the data gathered from the five carefully selected respondents, this study helps to identify not only the chances and difficulties of Vietnamese air freight but also spots the similarities and differences between the current perspectives of the professionals and the viewpoints or research from the earlier reports. The author used a semi-structured interview approach to achieve rich and representative information from the five air freight forwarders with different experiences and working times from various main cargo hubs in Vietnam. The theories and backgrounds knowledge related to the field are explained in detail in the chapter of the theoretical framework including the history of Vietnamese air cargo, the current statistics, the three-flow model in logistics, the international rules, and regulations as well as some other factors that have significant impacts on the Air freight sector of Vietnam. These secondary data extracted from the scientific articles and reports are the foundation for this thesis. By using a qualitative approach with a deliberate analysis of the gathered information, the findings of this research indicate that the challenges of Vietnamese air freight contain the limited cargo types and sizes for the material flow; the burden of paperwork during Covid time and the non-support of the government for the digitalization caused many problems in the information flow, and the negative influences of Russia embargo due to the war on the capital flow as well as the issues that air freight forwarders in Vietnam have to face when working in small freight forwarding firms. The results also suggested some opportunities in the Vietnamese air freight market such as the benefits of specialized cargo in the material flow of air freight; the ease and flexibility of aviation rules that facilitate the flow of data; the increasing investment of various enterprises and governments into air freight of Vietnam to foster the flow of money and the positive impact of Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnamese air cargo market. Most of these findings align with the researcher's previous studies, but still accommodate many unexpected results that need further research.