Vietnam’s low-cost carrier Vietjet will officially launch a nonstop route connecting the country’s capital city with Osaka, Japan in late-2018.

The first nonstop Vietjet flight from Hanoi to Osaka is scheduled to depart on November 8, 2018, a Vietjet representative said at the Japan-Vietnam Economic Forum in Tokyo on Thursday.

The ceremony was attended by visiting Vietnamese State President Tran Dai Quang, Japanese government representatives, political officials from both countries, and Vietjet representatives.

According to Vietjet, the new route will further bolster tourism and trade integration between the two countries and across the region.

“We are excited to launch this new route. The Hanoi-Osaka flight will be the first phase of Vietjet’s expansion into Japan,” Vietjet’s Vice President Nguyen Thi Thuy Binh said.

“As part of our expansion strategy, we will continue to open new routes connecting Vietnam and Japan’s economic and tourism hubs in order to diversify destination choices and better meet the growing demand for air travel between the two countries and beyond to better connect with the rest of the world,” Binh declared.

Using Vietjet’s new and modern A320 aircraft, the Hanoi-Osaka route will operate on a daily basis with a flight time topping four hours per leg.

As proposed, flights on the route will depart from Hanoi each day at 1:45 am and arrive in Osaka at around 7:50 am (all local times).

Returning to Vietnam, flights on the route will take off from Osaka at 9:20 am and land in Hanoi at around 1:10 pm (all local times).

With the new service to Osaka, the airline’s total number of international routes will rise to 45, while Vietjet’s domestic network includes 38 routes.

Ticket sales for the new route are expected to begin on June 8.

The low-cost carrier has previously collaborated with Japanese travel agencies to operate many direct charter flights from Vietnam to Osaka as well as Narita, Sendai, Nagoya, Ibaraki and Fukushima.

At the ceremony, Vietjet, SBI Leasing Services, Natixis and some of the Japanese equity arrangers also signed an MOU worth a total of nearly US$600 million for the purpose of aircraft financing.

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