VIETNAM AIRLINES OPENS ANOTHER REGIONAL ROUTE

VIETNAM AIRLINES OPENS ANOTHER REGIONAL ROUTE


HANOI, Oct 30 Asia Pulse - Vietnam Airlines launched another regional route that links Hanoi with Siem Riep of Cambodia via Luang Prabang of Laos on October 29.

The national flag carrier will conduct five flights a week on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, using Fokker 70 planes.

Pham Ngoc Minh, deputy general director of Vietnam Airlines, said the new route is expected to further beef up tourism cooperation among the three neighbouring countries.

The carrier also plans to open several regional routes, including the Luang Prabang-Dien Bien Phu, and the Vientiane-Siem Riep-Ho Chi Minh City-Da Nang.

At present, Vietnam Airlines is operating Hanoi-Vientiane-Phnom Penh-HCM City route, with one flight a day.

The airline began to fly to Siem Riep in March 2000 and Luang Prabang in late 2006. It currently performs 45 flights a week on the HCM City-Siem Riep route and 21 flights a week on the Hanoi-Siem Riep air link.

In addition, Vietnam Airlines has been working out a project to put into use a direct air link to the US in late 2008. Los Angeles or San Francisco will be selected as the destination in the US .
So far this year, Vietnam Airlines have conducted close to 47,300 flights, carrying 5.85 million passengers, a year-on-year increase of 13 per cent.

The corporation earned the nine-month revenues of VND14.48 trillion (US$905 million) and pre-tax profit of VND301 billion.