It will resume flights from Hanoi to Taipei in Taiwan on September 29 and Seoul in South Korea October 7. There will be one weekly round trip to begin with.

The airline will begin to fly on the HCMC-Tokyo sector from November 1 and the Hanoi-Tokyo sector from December.

It will also begin a service between the northern port city of Hai Phong and Singapore besides direct flights from Hanoi and HCMC to Melbourne, Australia, in the fourth quarter.

A spokesperson for the airline said wide-body Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft would be used for long-haul flights, adding preparations are under way to fly to Europe once Covid-19 is contained globally.

It is scheduled to start services from Hanoi and HCMC to London in the U.K. and Munich/Frankfurt in Germany in the first quarter of 2021 and is awaiting approval.

Nguyen Ngoc Trong, deputy CEO of Bamboo Airways, said there are long-term plans to fly to 27 European destinations.

Vietnam suspended all international flights on March 25.

Bamboo Airways, launched in January last year, was operating on 40 domestic and international routes before the pandemic struck in January. It reported pre-tax profit of VND303 billion ($13 million) in 2019.