Swiss Edelweiss is one of the foreign air carriers that have opened new air routes to Vietnam. The airline last week began providing two flights a week between Zurich and HCMC. 

Flights depart Zurich on Monday and Thursday, and from HCMC on Tuesday and Friday, using Airbus A340-300s with 27 business-class seats, 76 Economy Max and 211 economy seats.

The first air route that links Zurich and HCMC has fly time of 13 hours.

The air route will give more choices to travelers in HCMC to fly to Zurich and other cities in Europe via SWISS.

Jeju Air, which began providing flights to Vietnam four years ago, now has six air routes to Da Nang, HCMC, Hanoi and Nha Trang. Last week it announced a plan to open the Da Nang-Daegu route from December 22. It is expected that seven flights on the route would be provided.

The air carrier is also going to increase the number of flights from Muan to Da Nang to seven per week, raising its total number of weekly flights between Vietnam and South Korea to 63.

Prior to that, Vietjet opened the first direct route to Japan to promote tourism and trade between Vietnam and Japan. Hanoi-Osaka flights are provided daily with A321 Neo.

It is expected that Vietjet will open two more air routes to the country in Northeast Asia in the upcoming months, including HCMC-Osaka, commencing from December 14 and Hanoi-Tokyo January 11, 2019.

South Korea, Japan and Europe are the leading markets for Vietnam’s tourism. According to GSO, in the first 10 months of the year, Vietnam received 2.9 million travelers from South Korea, up by 48.3 percent over the same period last year, and 684,000 Japanese, up by 3.9 percent. 

Vietnam’s tourism is entering the busiest season of the year as foreign travelers, especially from countries with severe winters, plan their outbound tours to destinations with a warmer climate.

Meanwhile, many Vietnamese travelers like to go abroad in the last months of the year to enjoy skiing and the Christmas holiday.

It is also the high business season for travel firms and domestic flight providers. To take full advantage of the high number of travelers on the occasion of Christmas, New Year and Tet, Bamboo Airways is making hectic preparations for its first flight, scheduled on December 29.

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