Vietnamese no-frills carrier VietJet Air will offer a special return flight from Ho Chi Minh City to the Taiwanese city of Taipei next year to mark the launch of the new service between the two cities.

The nonstop service was inaugurated on Friday with five round trips per week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, the carrier said in a press release.

The flight duration is three hours and 25 minutes per leg, according to VietJet Air.

On scheduled flight days, VietJet will depart from Ho Chi Minh City at 2:30 pm (Vietnam time) and arrive in Taipei at 6:55 pm (Taiwan time). Coming from the other direction, flights will take off from Taipei at 8:00 pm (Taiwan time) and arrive in Ho Chi Minh City at 10:25 pm (Vietnam time).

On March 20, 2015, the airline will run a special flight as part of an initiative called “Spread the Love” for Vietnamese and Taiwanese living in Taiwan, as well as Taiwanese people residing in Vietnam.

Customers will be able to avail of a 100 percent discount on one leg and 50 percent discount on the return leg for the “truly symbolic flight of friendship,” according to Desmond Lin, business development director with VietJet.

“With a large Taiwanese community in Vietnam and a growing Vietnamese community in Taiwan, we hope we can reconnect families and friends, while also encouraging further trade and tourism growth between [Vietnam and Taiwan],” Lin said in a statement.

Registration for the special flight started on December 12 and ends on January 15, 2015 on the airline’s website.

“With this new flight between Vietnam and Taiwan, we would like to encourage more Taiwanese enterprises, businesspersons and tourists from Taiwan to Vietnam,” Lin said.

VietJet Air is expected to continue expanding its flight network in the near future by adding flights from Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to Kaohsiung and Taichung in Taiwan, according to airline representatives.

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