South Korea’s Jeju Air has announced it will open a new direct route to Vietnam’s central city of Da Nang in late December, an addition to its ever-expanding options connecting South Korea and several Southeast Asian destinations.

The inaugural flight operated by the low-cost carrier will take off from the southeast South Korean city of Daegu en route to Da Nang in December, increasing the total number of air routes between the two nations to seven.

The Daegu - Da Nang route will operate seven flights a week, with each flight taking four to five hours.

Besides opening the new route, the airline will also increase the number of flights from Muan County in South Korea’s southwest province of South Jeolla to Da Nang to seven a week, bringing the total number of flights between Vietnam and South Korea operated by Jeju Air to more than 60 per week, according to news site VnExpress,

Jeju Air entered the Vietnamese market four years ago, and has so far operated six services to four big cities in the Southeast Asian country, including Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Nha Trang City in the south-central province of Khanh Hoa.

Da Nang is the airline’s largest market in Vietnam with 30 flights per week, while the remaining three have seven Jeju Air flights each per week.

According to data by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, South Korea is the second-largest source market for Vietnam’s tourism.

In the first ten months of this year, more than 2.8 million South Korean visitors spent their holidays in Vietnam, up 48.3 percent from the same period last year.

Meanwhile, 429,000 Vietnamese visited South Korea in the first 11 months of this year, up 42.7 percent year on year, according to the representative office of the South Korea Tourism Administration in Vietnam.

It is estimated that the number of visitors from Vietnam to South Korea will increase by over 40 percent by the end of this year, compared to 2017.

Japan, China, and Thailand were the three destinations that attracted the most South Korean visitors three years ago, but Vietnam has currently overtaken Thailand to become the second-most attractive destination, VnExpress reported, citing a Jeju Air representative.

Jeju Air’s revenues from Vietnam are just behind the largest market, Japan.

The airline also plans to recruit Vietnamese flight attendants.  

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