A Turkmenistan Airlines cargo plane at London Stansted Airport is about to fly back to Vietnam, transiting Turkmenistan. (Source: VNA)

The Turkmenistan Airlines-operated route, the first of its kind, is expected to boost bilateral trade activities between the two countries whose free trade agreement came into effect in May 2021.

Thai Tran, Managing Director of TT Meridian, expressed his belief that it will provide exporters, importers and forwarding agents with more choices in addition to the existing direct and indirect services available in the market.

The new UK-Vietnam all-cargo flights are also expected to pave the way for more goods to be air transported between the two countries, he added.

The new all-cargo service uses A330 aircraft that can carry 30 tonnes.

From May, the flight departs from London Stansted Airport (STN) to Turkmenistan’s Ashgabat International Airport (ASB) on Wednesday evening, local time. Transit time is approximately 4 hours.

It then departs from the ASB on Thursday morning and arrives at Vietnam’s Noi Bai International Airport on Thursday afternoon local time. The return flight departs from Noi Bai on Thursday evening and arrives at the STN on Wednesday morning the following week. Transit time is 5-6 days.

Despite the global recession, there has been a notable growth in the movement of physical products from Vietnam to the UK and vice versa.

According to the UK Department for Business and Trade, the total of Vietnam's exports to the UK in 2022 amounted to 5.9 billion GBP (7.34 billion USD), an impressive increase of 30.3% against 2021. Meanwhile, the total UK exports to Vietnam last year was 1.0 billion GBP, a year-on-year increase of 22.3%.