2018 will see a boom in Vietnam’s aviation industry.
As VnExpress reports, the Vietnamese government recently greenlit Vietnam Airlines (VNA)’ proposal to open numerous flight routes from local metropolises to international destinations. Among these, the Saigon-US non-stop service is perhaps one of the most anticipated. According to the news source, this will likely happen this year as VNA has narrowed down its first US destination to either Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Talks of the Vietnam-US flight began as early as July 2016 with VNA working on the fulfilling requirements to make it happen. Not long ago, in November 2017, VietJet also expressed wishes to fly to the US, more specifically San Jose in California.
In the near future, the national carrier will also establish more routes to Australia, China, Europe and the US. At the moment, there have already been flights to Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shanghai; but, aviation firms will boost their service scale by increasing flight frequency and using bigger aeroplanes.
Last year, Vietnam's tourism sector also enjoyed unprecedented interests from Chinese tourists and South Korea. Therefore, officials are already working on plans to connect local tourist attractions like Can Tho, Da Lat, Da Nang, Hai Phong, Hue, Nha Trang, and Phu Quoc with 17 other big cities in China.
These include Changchun, Chongqing, Dalian, Fuzhou, Guilin, Guiyang, Haikou, Hainan, Harbin, Lanzhou, Ningbo, Shenyang, Wuhan, Xi'an, Xiamen, Xishuangbanna and Zhengzhou.
The new US and China service is predicted to boost foreign arrivals by 50% in the next two years. In the next phase of the aviation master plan, Vietnam is also looking into routes to and from Australia, France, India, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.
Travelers from most of these nations have already benefitted from Vietnam’s e-visa scheme while Australian and Indian tourists were added to the list not long ago in November.
[Photo via TripAdvisor]
