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Air hostesses serve passengers on a Vietnam Airlines flight. The domestic aviation industry has been urged to invest in high quality human resources

Inadequate and weak local human resources remained their biggest challenges, carriers said, adding that this has forced them to hire foreign employees who were paid much more than local employees.

At present, except for the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, all other airlines have to hire a majority of their pilots and engineers from abroad.

The online newspaper Vietnamplus.vn quoted Deputy General Director of VietJet, Nguyen Duc Tam saying that hiring personnel was a difficult problem for the aviation industry, which required special professional standards and services. Also, there were not too many local training establishments, he noted.

Director of Jetstar's northern office, Duong Hoai Nam agreed. He told the online newspaper that it took time and money for airlines to retrain new recruits as most of them failed to meet the sector's requirements soon after their graduation.

Experts also outlined the pressure on airlines to increase profits as another reason behind the sector's personnel shortage. In fact, some carriers have cut training costs for higher profits.

Trinh Quoc Tuan, from the Civil Aviation Authority of Viet Nam (CAAV) advised airlines to pay more attention to training personnel, which was regarded as an important factor in ensuring safe flight operations.

In order to deal with the problem, the CAAV has joined hands with the Viet Nam Aviation Academy to train aviation human resources, considering it a breakthrough aviation transport development strategy by 2020.

According to the CAAV, Viet Nam's aviation industry has made significant development in recent years, with domestic routes increasing to 53 in 2013 from only 31 in 2009.

From 2009 to 2013, the sector transported over 175 million passengers and 3.1 million tonnes of cargo, representing annual growth of nearly 17 per cent and 12.7 per cent, respectively.

Apart from Vietnam Airlines, VietJet and Jetstar Pacific, an additional 49 foreign airlines are operating on 71 international routes to Viet Nam.