VietJet is a Vietnamese no-frills airline with a fleet of 56 Airbus A320 family aircraft. They have 125 Airbus A321-200/neo aircraft on order apart from 200 Boeing 737Max aircraft. They launched operations in 2011 and have had an impressive growth rate as is with almost all LCCs. VietJet is also known as the Bikini Airline and is more famous for their annual Bikini Calendar.

VietJet announced their plan for an India foray back in February 2017. They planned on launching 3x weekly flights to connect Ho Chi Minh City with New Delhi from July 2017. Then there was a radio silence for a year. In March 2018, they announced that they will launch a 4x weekly flight on Ho Chi Minh City-New Delhi route from July 2018 with an Airbus A320 aircraft.

In July 2018, there was some chatter that VietJet would finally launch 4x weekly flights from November 2018. Then during a bilateral meeting in November 2018 between India and Vietnam, there was a mention of VietJet starting the route soon. But nothing moved.

Back in the day, Jet Airways used to operate a direct flight to Vietnam which used to stop at Bangkok. They discontinued it later due to poor loads. What I wanted to point out is, they initially launched it as Delhi-Bangkok-Ho Chi Minh City only to change it to Mumbai-Bangkok-Ho Chi Minh City. The reason for this change was more passengers were coming in from Mumbai than Delhi (almost 5 times).

Now after more than a year and a half of delay, VietJet has quietly started selling tickets for this flight last week. And while they are at it, VietJet is doubling down by making it a daily operation to Delhi, but from different airports in Vietnam. VietJet New Delhi flights launch on December 6, 2019.

VietJet will launch flights between Delhi and Ho Chi Minh City four days a week, and Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for three days a week, to be operated by an Airbus A320 aircraft

Vietnamese private airline VietJet has opened sale of its much delayed non-stop flights between Ho Chi Minh City (IATA: SGN) & New Delhi (IATA: DEL). And while doing so has also launched flights between Hanoi (IATA: HAN) and New Delhi, giving daily options to Vietnam from New Delhi – which is the largest market between India and Vietnam.

Here is the schedule of the flights between Ho Chi Minh City and Delhi and v.v.:

VJ895 SGN1900 – 2250DEL A320 x246
VJ896 DEL2350 – 0610(+1)SGN A320 x246

Here is the schedule of the flights between Hanoi and Delhi and v.v.

VJ971 HAN1910 – 2250DEL A320 246
VJ972 DEL2350 – 0520 (+1)HAN A320 246

Unfortunately for VietJet, they would now have to compete on this virgin route with an Indian player as well, IndiGo, who is launching flights between Kolkata and Hanoi on October 3, as a part of their Buddhist Circuit.

Another factor for VietJet to look into would be their extremely low headline pricing. VietJet is selling tickets for one-way at USD 29 which is about INR 2100.

But when you expand to the next page, you will get hit with another USD 54- 66 on top of the same USD 29, so, that would make it an INR 6.5K ticket one way even without bags and food, but just a 7 Kg carry on.

Bottomline

With flights costing as low as US$ 58 round trip, VietJet will clearly claim the eyeballs. Whether it will be able to fill up the seats is a totally different thing however.

Do you think VietJet New Delhi flights will launch and would you like to be on it?