HANOI, 28 June 2021: Vietnam Airlines is the second Vietnamese airline this month to gain traffic rights to fly to North American cities following approvals granted to Bamboo Airlines.
Transport Canada awarded a foreign air operator’s certificate to Vietnam’s national airline that would allow it to fly direct passenger and cargo services as early as next month.
If it does organise flights, they will be limited to repatriation services for Vietnamese returning home or studying in Canada.
The decision by Transport Canada to award a Foreign Air Operator Certificate allows the airline to carry passengers and cargo to any point in the country.
Routesonline, last week, said the first repatriation service would fly to Vancouver. Currently, the airline does not operate direct commercial scheduled flights to cities in North America. However, it does offer services to Los Angeles and San Francisco with an intermediary stop in Taipei, Seoul or Narita Tokyo using either Boeing 787s or Airbus A350s.
Under the traffic rights secured from Transport Canada, it can now fly direct services to Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.
Earlier this month, Bamboo Airways gained traffic rights from the US Transportation Department from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) to Los Angeles in the US.
The airline has been considering a route to the US since it was formed in 2017. It plans to fly between Ho Chi Minh City and Los Angeles, and San Francisco starting in October 2021, with four flights weekly. Initially, flights will stop in Taipei, Osaka, or Nagoya, but it intends to fly direct to Los Angeles in the long term.
Owned by the FLC Group, the airline is registered in Quy Nhơn, Vietnam, with a head office in Hanoi.
