TOKYO – Việt Nam’s new-age carrier Vietjet will launch a direct flight connecting Hà Nội with Osaka in Japan on November 8.

The move is expected to further boost tourism and trade integration between the two countries and across the region.

A ceremony announcing the new route was held on Thursday in the presence of Vietnamese President Trần Đại Quang, representatives of the Japanese government and officials from both the countries.

“The Hà Nội-Osaka route will be the first service for Vietjet’s expansion into Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun,” Vietjet’s vice president Nguyễn Thị Thúy Bình said.

Vietjet will continue to open new routes connecting Việt Nam and Japan’s economic and tourism hubs to diversify destination choices for its consumers and to better meet the growing demand for air travel between the two countries and beyond as well as to better connect with the rest of the world, Bình said.

Previously, Vietjet has collaborated with Japanese travel agencies to operate many direct chartered flights from Việt Nam to Osaka as well as to Narita, Sendai, Nagoya, Ibaraki and Fukushima in Japan.

Using Vietjet’s new and modern A320 aircraft, the Hà Nội-Osaka direct flight will operate daily with a flight time of more than four hours one way.

The flight will depart from Hà Nội every day at 1.45am and arrive in Osaka at around 7.50am (local time), while the return flight will take off from Osaka at 9.20am (local time) and land in Hà Nội at around 1.10pm.

Vietjet’s new service to Osaka will take the airline’s total number of international routes to 45, in addition to the 38 domestic routes, Vietjet said in a statement.

Tickets for the new flight is expected to be available from June 8 on www.vietjetair.com.

At the ceremony, Vietjet, SBI Leasing Services, Natixis and some of the Japanese equity arrangers also signed a Memorandum of Understanding worth nearly US$600 million to facilitate aircraft financing. — VNS