Trai Thien, a private Vietnamese cargo airline, is reported to be in financial difficulty by local media. The airline is reported to have not paid salaries to its staff for the past five months and financial difficulties have forced it to change its flight schedule regularly.
The cargo carrier was only license to provide air cargo transportation services in October 2009 and was planned to start flying in July 2010. However, the first commercial flight was delayed until September but has since failed to happen.
A local newspaper VnExpress received complaints from Trai Thien’s workers that they had not been paid since April, a fact confirmed by the airline’s deputy director Le Giang Long. “In such current conditions, both the leadership and workers need to stand side by side to build up the company and prepare for the first commercial flight,” Long said to local media. He has since confirmed the airline will pay salaries by mid-November.