The first seaplane flights between Dong Hoi in the north-central coastal province of Quang Binh and the central coastal city of Da Nang will be launched from May 4 by Hai Au Aviation JSC.
Using 12-passenger Cessna craft, the flights will offer sightseeing of Quang Binh province’s Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park, a world natural heritage site.Tickets for charter flights requested during the week are estimated at 3,300 USD per flight, while regular flights on Saturdays and Sundays cost 300 USD per ticket. The flight time is about one hour.These promotion tickets will be offered from May 4 to September 20, 2019. After that, the company will announce new prices.A test flight on the route was conducted successfully on April 18.Phong Nha – Ke Bang is dubbed the “Kingdom of Caves” for the magnificent specimens it boasts. It was twice recognised as world natural heritage sites by UNESCO in 2003 and 2015.Son Doong, located in the heart of the Phong Nha – Ke Bang Nation Park, is the world’s largest cave recognised by three international organisations, namely Guinness (based in the UK), the Association World Record (based in Hong Kong) and WorldKings (based in the US and India).The 1,645m-long cave system, which extends through a mountain, was named one of the most captivating on earth by National Geographic. It was discovered by a local in 1991 and first explored in 2009 by the British Cave Research Association, and has been open to the public since 2013.Meanwhile, another cave, the Thien Duong, was labelled the world’s most beautiful and magnificent when it was discovered by scientists from the British Cave Research Association in 2005. Located 4 km west of the North-South Ho Chi Minh Road, the cave is surrounded by underground streams and rocky mountains. Thien Duong Cave is 30-100 metres wide, with the widest point measuring 150 metres. With a length of more than 36 km, it is considered the longest dry cave in Asia. Besides Son Doong and Thien Duong, other well-known caves include En and Pygmy, which are said to be the third and fourth biggest in the world.In 2018, Quang Binh welcomed some 3.9 million visitors, a year-on-year rise of 18.2 percent – including 200,000 foreigners, up 53.8 percent. The tourism sector raked in nearly 4.5 trillion VND (more than 192 million USD) in the year.The province aims to welcome 4.3 million tourists in 2019, including 250,000 foreigners, and gross in excess of 4.5 trillion VND in revenue.
