VIETNAM

Western Aircraft in Use: Vietnam Airlines will use two Western aircraft to improve its aging Soviet-made fleet, despite a ban on buying or leasing Western-built planes under a U.S. trade embargo. The state-run carrier said it began flying an Airbus A310 in mid-January on routes from Ho Chi Minh City to Singapore, Manila and Hong Kong. Vietnam got round the trade ban by chartering the planes rather than leasing them. It has been flying a Boeing 737-300 between Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok and on the Hanoi-Hong Kong route since early January, the airline said. The U.S. ban on transferring high technology, which includes plane engine parts, dates back to the 1964 trade embargo on Hanoi. Other restrictions include strictures that the planes cannot stay overnight in Vietnam. The airline also had to agree to keep its insignia off the chartered aircraft.