Vietnamese low cost carrier Vietjet is (finally) expanding to Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The last time this happened was nothing short of drama with the airline having opened reservations of flights only to shut it later and the Ministry of Civil Aviation pulling out bilateral right data from its website. With no official confirmation, there are all indications that the bilateral rights have been revised but the Ministry now forbids putting details in public domain. Media has reported the increase in rights between India and Vietnam from 28 to 42 flights a week.
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Vietjet has now opened sale of flights to Hyderabad, effective March 18 and Bengaluru, effective March 19. The airline will operate twice a week to Hyderabad from Ho Chi Minh City, while it will operate thrice a week to Bengaluru from Ho Chi Minh city. This will take VietJet’s flights to India to 78 weekly flights as it already operates to New Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kochi.
The new flights will operate as below
VJ1803 SGN1940 – 2235HYD
VJ1804 HYD2335 – 0530(+1)SGN
Operates on Tue and Sat
VJ1801 SGN1910 – 2230BLR
VJ1802 BLR2330 – 0555(+1)SGN
Operates on Mon, Wed and Fri
Vietnam – India connections and ties
Vietnam is one of the countries within ASEAN which are banking heavily on tourists from India. According to Vietnam’s government data, more than 5 lakh travelers visited Vietnam in 2024, an increase of 3.6 times over 2022, which was still a COVID year. India is now placed sixth in international arrivals into Vietnam. India – Vietnam ties are at strategic, defence and commercial level and aviation now is part of it. Vietjet and Vietnam airlines have sort of divided the frequencies between themselves to both Delhi and Mumbai from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Vietjet has expanded to points beyond the metro’s where as part of ASEAN open skies agreement, carriers can mount unlimited flights.
For the July – September quarter, the last for which data is available in public domain, 78,353 passengers flew to India while 82,717 flew from India to Vietnam. This count is only of those who flew on direct flights and one-stops are not part of the data reported by DGCA.
Network Thoughts
For an airline like Vietjet which has a large appetite to grow, India is a natural progression in its network. It launched flights in 2019 after two successive years of announcements. The pandemic became a roadblock in its plans. It further expanded the service, some of which materialised while some did not. In 2023, there was a change in point of call when Hyderabad and Bengaluru got added. One wonders if Vietjet wants to thrive on the connecting traffic from India and take away a slice of the market which currently resides with AirAsia Bhd.
The India – Vietnam sector is one of the few where Indian carriers took lead in starting and have since seen the market taken over by carriers from the other country. IndiGo maintains its daily service to both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, only from Kolkata while Air India continues its daily service between Delhi and Ho Chi Minh City which caters to connections to Europe.
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