The national flag carrier and its low-cost subsidiary plan to increase the number of flights on the route from the current 28 to 36 in January as travel demand is expected to increase due to Vietnam’s Lunar New Year holiday Tet, which falls in February next year.

This means by that time there will be daily flights every 20-30 minutes between the two largest cities in the country, a spokesperson said Monday.

The spokesperson added maintenance of runways at the two largest airports, Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCMC and Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, is expected to complete soon and allow airlines to increase their flight frequency.

The airline has already seen an increasing number of passengers on this route as the Covid-19 pandemic in Vietnam remains under control. Its current number of flight has surged 2.5 times from August when the country experienced its second outbreak.

It currently serves 92,000 passengers a week on the route, down 2 percent year-on-year. The figure accounts for 57 percent of all passengers frequenting this route.

The Hanoi-HCMC route was the world’s second busiest domestic route in November with 892,800 seats after South Korea’s Jeju-Seoul, according to British aviation analysis company OAG.