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

Dang Tat Thang, general director of Bamboo Airways, said the airline planned to exploit 37 routes connecting all big cities and famous tourism destinations in Viet 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,” Thang added.

South Korea will continue to be a key market for Vietnamese airlines. In addition to current routes connecting Ha Noi, HCM City and Da Nang to Seoul and Busan, Vietnamese airlines planned to open new routes from Nha Trang and Phu Quoc to Jeju, Muan, Cheongju and Yangyang in South Korea.

Currently, Viet Nam’s aviation market has 11 airlines exploiting the two countries’ flight routes including nine from South Korea and two from Viet 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 Viet Bamboo Airlines Company based in the city of Quy Nhon in Binh Dinh Province. The company, owned by property developer FLC Group, was established in 2017 with charter capital of VND700 billion ($31.4 million). — VNS