VietJet flies to Bangkok

HO CHI MINH CITY, 13 February 2013: Low-cost VietJetAir opened its first international route linking Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok, 10 February.

The new service was launched with very little fanfare other than press statements from the airline suggesting it was joining the ranks of international airlines by serving neighbouring Bangkok, where it hopes to pick-up connecting traffic from Suvarnabhumi Airport.

VietJetAir Business Development director, Desmond Lin, said the flight will depart from HCMC at 1145 and arrive in Bangkok at 1315.

The return flight will take off from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport 1430 and land in HCMC at 1600.

“In the first stage, we will operate daily flights, using Airbus A320 bearing the symbol of Vietnamese tourism to the Bangkok gateway.”

It represents the 10th route and Mr Lin said it was a milestone in the development of the carrier.

VietJetAir also launched a Thai language website to provide information for Thai travellers. It plans to use the website booking engine to generate most of its bookings.

Bookings and secure payment for fares are already active on www.vietjetair.com, which is in three languages Thai, English and Vietnamese.

Initially, the airline hopes to gain business from expatriate Vietnamese citizens who live overseas and need to visit relatives using Bangkok as a gateway.

But it will also chase business in the local Bangkok market where more tours are being organised to Vietnam. Thailand’s outbound market was the 10th largest according to the January travel arrivals data  for Vietnam.

Last December, VietJetAir appointed Quality Express Tour as its general sales agency in Thailand to sell tickets through Thailand’s network of retail travel agencies.

Quality Express Tour is an affiliate of Quality Express Group owned by Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn who is also the president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents.

Quality Express Tour will develop sales channels for VietJetAir throughout Thailand. The travel agency will also set up a Thai based hotline (+66 22 777 111) to help Thai customers and foreigners with VietJetAir-related queries and schedules.

Sourced: ttrweekly