In great news for Queensland travelers Vietnamese low cost carrier VietJet have announced the first ever direct flights between the Sunshine State and Vietnam. Coming hot off the announcement of the airline’s soon to be launched April flights from both Sydney and Melbourne, the airline will be adding a twice weekly service between Brisbane and Ho Chi Minh City from June 16.
The twice weekly service VJ84 will depart Brisbane at 11.10pm on Monday and Friday evenings for a backwards red eye flight to Ho Chi Minh City landing at 4.40am the following morning. The inbound flight VJ83 will then depart Ho Chi Minh City at 10.05am on the same days ahead of a 9.10pm arrival into Brisbane.
Brisbane Airport Corporation Chief Executive Officer Gert-Jan de Graaff said: “Vietnam is a rapidly growing market for Queensland, and we are delighted to have Vietjet join the BNE family. To have Vietnam and the Sunshine State connected for the first time by non-stop flights will deliver benefits in two countries. This historic new service from Vietjet will enable family and friends in Vietnam easy connection to Queensland.”
Vietjet’s Vice President Nguyen Thanh Son said : “We are very excited to fly first direct flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Queensland which is called the Sunshine state in Australia. The addition of Brisbane to our list of destinations would be another development to broadly connect Australia and Vietnam. Especially, with our recent introduced connecting services through Ho Chi Minh City and soon other Vietnamese hubs, Vietjet can bring more passengers from Asia and European countries to Australia.
These flights complement the already announced Sydney services which will begin on April 12 with three flights a week on the airline’s Airbus A330 aircraft. The new services will be wheels up out of Ho Chi Minh City at 10.15am for a mid afternoon 4.30pm arrival every Monday, Thursday and Saturdays. The return service will leave Ho Chi Minh City every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday evenings at 7.30pm local time for a arrival into Sydney at 7.20am the following morning.
Additionally, VietJet’s Melbourne services will start only days earlier on April 8 which will initially be a thrice weekly service departing on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings just after midnight at 12.30am before arriving into Ho Chi Min City nice and early at 5.15am later that morning. The return service will jet out of Ho Chi Minh City at 9.50am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday before arriving into Melbourne at 10.35pm that evening. Whilst the service will initially be limited to three times weekly it is understood that the airline has plans to hopefully increase the service to daily by the year’s end.
The flights will be operated by the airline’s Airbus A330s and although the airline has a low cost focus the aircraft will still feature its ‘Sky Boss’ Business cabin offering 12 angled flat bed seats promising to deliver an affordable opportunity to try business class perhaps without all the latest and greatest trimmings but neither the price tag.
VietJet is also believed to be planning even more services to capitalize on booming Aussie interest in visiting Vietnam and also the strong Vietnamese travel market to Australia for university education with plans to eventually launch flights to possibly Darwin and Adelaide also in the pipeline.
