National Assembly Chairman Vương Đình Huệ and delegates at a ceremony celebrating the 10th anniversary of Vietjet Air’s first flight to China and announcing the opening of new route to Shanxi on Wednesday. — VNA/VNS Nhan Sáng

SHANGHAI — Việt Nam’s new-age carrier Vietjet celebrated the 10th anniversary of its first flight to China (2014-2024) and announced a direct route between HCM City and China’s Xi'an at a policy and law forum held in Shanghai city on Wednesday.

National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vương Đình Huệ, who is paying an official visit to China, and other leaders of the two countries attended the event.

Deputy Prime Minister Trần Lưu Quang congratulated Vietjet on its operational achievements, and noted his belief that the carrier will launch more flights between the two countries, thus helping promote the bilateral trade and mutual understanding and support, and deepen the Việt Nam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

After two routes to Shanghai and Chengdu, Vietjet will open a direct route between HCM City and Xi'an from April 29, becoming the airline flying directly from Việt Nam to the ancient capital of Xi'an.

With four return flights per week, the new route will help shorten the distance and travel time between the two destinations.

The flights from HCM City to Xi'an will take off on every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at 20:05 (local time), and land in Xi'an Xianyang International Airport at 01:30 the following day (local time). The return flights from Xi'an to HCM City take off on every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 02:30 (local time), and land in HCM City at 06:25 (local time).

Since the first flight in 2014, it has so far carried more than 12 million passengers on all routes connecting Việt Nam's political, economic, cultural and tourist centres and nearly 50 popular destinations throughout China, contributing to deepening and enhancing the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

Vietjet is a fully-fledged member of International Air Transport Association (IATA) with the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certificate.

As Việt Nam’s largest private carrier, the airline has been awarded the highest ranking for safety with 7 stars by the world’s only safety and product rating website airlineratings.com and listed as one of the world's 50 best airlines for healthy financing and operations by Airfinance Journal in many consecutive years. The airline has also been named as Best Low-Cost Carrier by renowned organisations such as Skytrax, CAPA, Airline Ratings, and many others. — VNS