HO CHI MINH CITY, 22 February 2022: Vietnam’s fledging airline, Bamboo Airways, introduced return flights (QH88 and QH89) to Melbourne, Australia, at the weekend, the airline reported on its Facebook page.
The airline’s deputy general director Truong Phuong Thanh said establishing the new service coincided with Australia reopening its international borders for vaccinated travellers on 21 February.
The new Ho Chi Minh City-Melbourne route is part of a wider expansion that sees the airline establish flights to Europe – the UK and Germany using Dreamliner 787-9 aircraft.
Earlier in December, Bamboo Airways announced the launch of the Vietnam-Australia direct air route and signed agreements with Melbourne airport and Victoria State.
According to data cited by the Vietnam News Agency, more than 383,000 Australians visited Vietnam in 2019, and around 300,000 Vietnamese students are enrolled in higher educations colleges and universities in Australia.
Bamboo Airways confirmed in a Facebook post plans to expand its international network to nearly 40 routes in 2022, including the Hanoi-Narita (Japan), Hanoi-Taipei (Taiwan, China) and Hanoi-Incheon (Republic of Korea). Routes such as Hanoi-Frankfurt (Germany) and Hanoi-London (UK) routes are scheduled for launch this March. Flights are already operating from Ho Chi Minh City to Frankfurt and London and to the US. In Southeast Asia, the airline currently serves Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand.
