Bamboo Airways has submitted a proposal to the Civil Aviation Authority of Viet Nam to allow the airline to exploit flight routes from Hanoi and HCM City to South Korea and Taiwan in 2019.

An aircraft of Bamboo Airways at Nội Bài International Airport. 

Đặng Tất Thắng, general director of Bamboo Airways, said the airline planned to exploit 37 routes connecting all big cities and famous tourism destinations in Việt Nam to foreign countries this year.

“Our international flight routes to Japan, South Korea and Singapore and to European countries would use wide-body aircrafts. Bamboo Airways finished negotiations on international flight routes with partners in Japan and South Korea to prepare for long routes in 2019,” Thắng added.

South Korea will continue to be a key market for Vietnamese airlines. In addition to current routes connecting Hà Nội, HCM City and Đà Nẵng to Seoul and Busan, Vietnamese airlines planned to open new routes from Nha Trang and Phú Quốc to Jeju, Muan, Cheongju and Yangyang in South Korea.

Currently, Việt Nam’s aviation market has 11 airlines exploiting the two countries’ flight routes including nine from South Korea and two from Việt Nam with 469 flights per route a week.

Last year, the number of passenger travelling by air between the two countries reached 7.7 million with the seat occupation rate of 87.6 per cent. Of which, Vietnamese airlines accounted for 32 per cent of the market share. 

Bamboo Airways is part of the Việt Bamboo Airlines Company based in the city of Quy Nhơn in Bình Định Province. The company, owned by property developer FLC Group, was established in 2017 with charter capital of VNĐ700 billion ($31.4 million). — VNS