Jetstar Pacific, 70% held by Vietnam Airlines and 30% by Australia’s Qantas Group, started operation in May 2008 as the first Vietnamese low-cost carrier.

The airline is operating nearly 100 weekly international flights to Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Guangzhou and more than 500 domestic flights to almost all cities in Vietnam. Jetstar Pacific plans to expand its fleet from the current 20 Airbus A320 planes to 30 planes by 2020.

At the same time, Vietnam Airlines announced to put Boeing 787-9 aircraft into operation on the Hanoi-Osaka route. Thus, its flights from Hanoi and HCMC to Tokyo and Osaka, the two biggest cities of Japan, are operated with new Boeing 787 and Airbus A350-900 XWB planes meeting four-star standards.

Duong Tri Thanh, general director of Vietnam Airlines, said Japan is a key market for the airline in its long-term development plan.

Vietnam Airlines is now the biggest carrier on the direct route between the two countries with 70 flights a week. The airline has 10 air services connecting Hanoi, HCMC and Danang with five airports of Japan namely Haneda, Narita, Kansai (Osaka), Centrair (Nagoya) and Fukuoka. Since the first flight in 1994, Vietnam Airlines has transported 10 million passengers between the two countries.

Up to 1.1 million passengers traveled by air between the two countries in 2016. The number is expected to increase by 13% to 1.3 million in 2017. Vietnam Airlines will use its wide-body aircraft for its flights to Japan and coordinate with Jetstar Pacific to develop new products.

Vietnam Airlines now operates 85 services to 20 domestic and 29 international destinations with about 400 flights a day using modern aircraft such as Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Airbus A350-900 XWB, Airbus A330 and Airbus A321.

In addition, Vietnam Airlines and Japan’s ANA Holdings Inc have cooperated to launch 10 international code-share flights between the two countries, four domestic flights in Vietnam and 21 flights in Japan.

Source:  thesaigontimes.vn