Vietnam's Bikini-Clad Carrier Seeks IPO To Be 'Emirates Of Asia'

 

 VietJet Aviation Joint Stock Co., the Vietnamese carrier known for its bikini-clad flight attendants, may hold its initial public offering as early as the second quarter as it plans to build global routes and become a top budget airline in Asia.

The IPO's exact timing will depend on market developments domestically and globally, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, chief executive officer of Vietnam's only privately-owned airline, said in an interview on Friday February 26,2016

The company hasn't finalized how much it wants to raise and could offer as much as a 30 percent stake, the regulatory limit for foreign holdings, she said

VietJet, which featured dancing flight attendants clad in bikinis on an inaugural route and bikini models on its airplanes for a desktop calendar, carried 9.3 million passengers in 2015, an increase of 66 percent from 2014

 

 

 

Revenue soared 205 percent last year to 10.9 trillion dong ($488 million) while net income rose to almost 1 trillion dong, according to the company.

The airline expects revenue to double this year and passenger capacity to reach 15 million this year

VietJet will probably surpass national carrier Vietnam Airlines as the nation's biggest domestic carrier this year, according to CAPA Centre for Aviation.

Vietnam is expected to rank among the world's 10 fastest-growing aviation markets in the next two decades, according to the International Air Transport Association