Long after war, U.S. flights return to Vietnam

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- The lingering image of American air travel in this city once called Saigon is a Marine Corps helicopter pulling away from the rooftop of an embattled U.S. Embassy.

However, nearly 30 years after that time, a United Airlines 747- 400 was greeted by two dozen white-clad women holding electronic lotus flowers, a battery of smiling officials and businessmen and at least 40 photographers elbowing for a better position to snap a shot of actor David Hasselhoff strolling in on a red carpet.

United's Flight 869, flying out of San Francisco with a stop in Hong Kong, landed at Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat Airport at 10:07 p.m. local time Friday, 18 minutes ahead of schedule.

It was the first U.S. commercial carrier to land in Vietnam since a Pan American Airways jetliner flew in, and left, in April 1975, days before the city was overtaken by the North Vietnamese army.

"The Vietnamese people have been waiting for this flight," said Tran Tuan Anh, Vietnam consul general based in San Francisco and son of the country's current president. "We want Americans to come back - - but by American airliners, not American warplanes."

The arrival of the 347-seat United jumbo jet came after months of negotiations involving the airline and the governments of Vietnam and the United States, and is the latest sign of the ongoing thaw between the two countries.

"The normalization process has been a slow one," said Mark Schwab, Tokyo-based vice president of United's Pacific operations. "It picked up speed (in 2000) when President Bill Clinton visited the country, but there was this one missing element: No airlines were flying between the two countries."

Even before United's launch, people were making the trip. Schwab said 300,000 Americans are expected to travel to Vietnam this year -- up 29 percent from a year ago, an increase inflated by the 2003 slowdown caused by SARS outbreaks. But those tourists will be coming in via Japanese, Korean, Thai and other primarily Asian carriers.

Now, for the first time in more than a generation, Americans will be able to fly directly -- albeit with a stop or two -- to Ho Chi Minh City.

Much of the early business, certainly during the Christmas and New Year's season, will be expatriate Vietnamese and their offspring, United officials said. Approximately 1.2 million Vietnamese live in the United States, according to Than, with the heaviest concentrations in California and Houston.

"They still have relatives and friends in Vietnam," Than said. "They can visit their homeland, visit their families. Once they come back to Vietnam, they'll want to visit again many times."

General tourism is also up and is expected by travel watchdogs to add 10 percent annually for the next decade, as travelers who have done the standard itineraries are drawn by tales of Vietnam's natural beauty, cultural attractions, beaches and their own basic curiosity about an nation emerging still from war and revolution.

Not everyone is ready to make that journey, however, and that includes significant numbers of Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese living in America. There are scars -- some hidden, some not.

"Obviously," said Martin White, United's senior vice president of marketing in Chicago, "some people may need more time --or it'll never be the right time."

"But others," he added, "will want to see how things have changed, because that was a long, long time ago..."

There also are sensitivities. On the inaugural flight -- along with Hasselhoff, representing the organization Wheels for Humanity, which provides wheelchairs for the needy worldwide--were dozens of ethnic Vietnamese, many along as part of a San Francisco delegation visiting its Sister City.

Some were upset because onboard announcements on the 14-hour San Francisco-Hong Kong leg were in Cantonese, Mandarin and English but not Vietnamese. A Vietnamese crew member was added for the two-hour flight from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City.

"An oversight," Schwab said.

In a brief layover at the Hong Kong airport, passengers were greeted by young women in Vietnamese costumes performing Vietnamese dances.

"The girls," an unhappy Vietnamese man whispered in a reporter's ear, "are Chinese."

But the Vietnam arrival and ceremonies were flawless.

There's still the reality of a struggling airline, while drastically cutting staff and looking for other ways to emerge from its money woes, adding a route that some would see as more symbolic than loaded with profit potential.

"A lot of people have said that," White said. "We're going to market our way out of this. We're not going to save our way back into a hole that won't allow us to be a competing airline going forward."

"Pan Am tried to do that and failed. Shrinking an airline to cut costs doesn't make sense," he said.

What does make sense, said White, is vision.

"We can really bridge gaps," he said. "When you put a flight in like this, it really does open doors.

"I think Cuba will be the same way someday," said White. "I hope United can be the first to do that, too."

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