Little-known Vietnamese carrier Bamboo Airways is set to plant its flag in Australia next year, eyeing regular flights between Melbourne and Hanoi from mid-2021. Using its Boeing 787-9 aircraft, Bamboo Airways would offer business class and premium economy service, in addition to economy. The airline’s Dreamliner business class cabin comes equipped with 26 seats in a 1-2-1 layout, based upon the same ‘Super Diamond’ seat as Australian travellers may recognise from the likes of Air Canada’s Boeing 787 Signature Class, Fiji Airways’ A350 business class, and of course, Virgin Australia’s now-defunct ‘The Business’ cabin. Serving as a suitable workspace for daytime flying and transforming into a fully-flat bed after hours, high flyers can stretch out and relax on what would be the nine-hour journey between Melbourne and Hanoi. “Australia is one of the most important source markets of Vietnam … (and we are) aiming to develop a regular direct route into operation in 2021,” confirms Bamboo Airways Deputy General Director, Nguyen Ngoc Trong. Melbourne Airport looks forward to “enhancing our nonstop service to Vietnam on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner in 2021, including to Hanoi for the first time, which opens up critical trade, leisure and business opportunities for Victoria,” adds the airport’s Chief of Aviation, Shane O’Hare. The news follows a one-off Bamboo Airways repatriation flight from Melbourne to Hanoi on the 6th September, with the commencement of regular services to Melbourne tied to the easing of international travel restrictions from Australia.
Bamboo Airways JSC, operating as Bamboo Airways, is a Vietnamese leisure airline owned by the FLC Group, registered in Quy Nhon, Vietnam, with a head office in Cầu Giấy District, Hanoi. The airline was established with a charter capital of US$56.52 million. The carrier started operations in January 2019, with the strategy of become a 5-Star airline. In March 2018, a total worth of up to $3.1 billion US dollars agreement between FLC Group and Airbus Group was sign to purchase 24 aircraft Airbus A321neo which was witnessed by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and French Parliamentary President François de Rugy. On the 25th June 2018, Bamboo airways, FLC Group officially signed an agreement with Boeing in Washington, D.C. to make an order of 20 new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft with a total worth of US $5.6 billion US dollars in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, with the purpose of opening Vietnam-United States and Vietnam-Europe direct flights.
As of July 2020[update], the Bamboo Airways fleet consists of the following aircraft:
| Aircraft | In service | Orders | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airbus A319-100 | 1 | — | |||||
| Airbus A320-200 | 9 | 1 | |||||
| Airbus A320neo | 5 | — | | ||||
| Airbus A321-200 | 3 | — | |||||
| Airbus A321neo | 4 | 24 | |||||
| | |||||||
| Boeing 787-9 | 3 | 20 | |||||
| Embraer 195 | — | 2 | |||||
| Total | 25 | 47 | |||||
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