The Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has recently given Vietnamese airline Bamboo Airways permission to operate a direct air route that links Vietnam and Japan.

The airline will therefore be permitted to operate seven flights per week from May 20 between Ho Chi Minh City-based Tan Son Nhat Airport and Narita Airport in Tokyo, in addition to seven flights from both Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport and HCM City’s Tan Son Nhat Airport to Kansai Airport in Osaka. 

The airline decided to delay the opening of these routes until the end of May due to the novel coronavirus, said Truong Phuong Thanh, Deputy General Director of Bamboo Airways, adding that the airline will co-ordinate efforts with relevant agencies and travel firms from Japan to open the routes based on the market’s recovery.

According to Thanh, Bamboo Airways will conduct one flight per day on each route, using new generation aircraft models such as the B787-9 Dreamliner and A321Neo.

Thanh spoke highly of the Japanese market’s development potential, saying the number of Japanese tourists visiting Vietnam over the past 10 years has increased at a rapid pace, with an average growth rate of between 8% and 10%.

Indeed, last year alone saw the total number of air travelers between the two countries reach 1,447,000, an increase of 18.9% from 2018’s figures. Of the figure, Vietnamese visitors to Japan surged by 27.3% to 495,000, while Japanese travelers visiting the nation rose by 15.2% to 952,000.

The Bamboo Airways representative noted out that Vietnam shares a number of cultural similarities with Japan, with the former’s diversified tourism products likely to be suitable to the tastes of Japanese holidaymakers.

In addition, with over 370,000 Vietnamese nationals living and studying in Japan, they now make up the third largest foreign community living in the Far East nation, following the expatriate communities of China and the Republic of Korea.

Thanh emphasised that with a five-star standard service quality, along with the average on-time performance rate being the highest in the country’s aviation industry, the airline is expected to be able to meet the diverse needs of various groups of passengers, as well as contributing to promoting trade ties and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.