Expanding its international operations, private carrier Jet Airways on Wednesday included Ho Chin Minh City in its network with the launch of a daily flight to the Vietnamese commercial capital via Bangkok from New Delhi.
"Ho Chin Minh City will be our 22nd international destination in our network and this flight, connecting Delhi and Mumbai via Bangkok to the Vietnamese city will not only provide a seamless connectivity to business travellers but also to the religious travellers," said Raj Shivkumar, Chief Commercial officer, Jet Airways.
He said Vietnam is turning out to be a preferred destination for holiday travellers and also Indian business were increasing their presence in that country, and a flight via Bangkok would be an added advantage for the business and tourism travellers, which would have second flight to the Thai city. "This would also given an option to the passengers from Delhi to several?destinations of their choice in ASEAN region while they transit over Bangkok," Shivkumar said.
The inaugural flight (9W-064), operated on a Boeing 737-800 with 168 passengers and crew, and took off from Terminal 3 of the IGI Airport here after a multi-faith puja, in which Ambassador of Vietnam to India, Ton Sinh Thanh also participated along with airlines officials.
The flight would take off from IGI Airport at 8.55 AM, and arrive Bangkok at 1430 hours local time. It would depart from Bangkok at 1545 hours and arrive in Ho Chin Minh City's Tan Son Nhat International Airport at 1715 hours.
On its return leg, flight 9W-063 would take off from Ho Chin Minh City at 1815 hours and arrive in Bangkok at 1945 hours, from where it would depart at 2030 hours for Delhi and arrive here at 2359 hours.
The new service has been introduced following signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in September between Jet Airways and Vietnam's flag carrier Vietnam Airlines. Shivkumar said in the coming days, the airline would connect more Indian cities with international destinations.
The airline will soon launch direct flights to Abu Dhabi from Lucknow and Goa and in this winter schedule, it plans to joins Ahmedabad and Pune with Abu Dhabi. The private carrier had also launched some additional flights to Gulf, and enhanced frequencies from Mumbai to Doha and Colombo.
Jet operates daily flights to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, Doha, Kuwait, Sharjah, Muscat, Jeddah and Riyadh, making it the largest operator between India and the Gulf.
Besides adding flights to Gulf, Jet has introduced a second direct service on the Mumbai-Colombo-Mumbai sector, providing onward connections to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to the Gulf, Bangkok, Singapore and Hong Kong in the Far East and to North America via Brussels and London Heathrow with direct and code share flights.
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