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The arrival of another low-cost Vietnamese carrier to Australia this year should help to push down international fares to the South-East Asian destination.
Vietjet will use Melbourne as its launching pad into the Australian market, with services between Melbourne and Ho Chi Minh City commencing from April.
It will become the fourth carrier to fly the Melbourne-Ho Chi Minh route, with the added competition good news for budget-conscious flyers.
Melbourne Airport chief executive Lorie Argus said: “The fact that it’s going to be the fourth carrier now flying [to] Ho Chi Minh City out of Melbourne … that can do nothing but be a great outcome for the traveller, for the competition that that will bring to the market.”
Although bookings are not yet open, Argus said she expected to see competitive airfares on the route.
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Vietjet will initially operate three return non-stop flights a week between Melbourne and the Vietnamese city, with plans to ramp up to daily services by December 2024.
The airline will fly an Airbus A330 on the route.
Argus said Vietnam is an important growth market for Australia, with Vietjet’s arrival in Melbourne to push seat capacity to the country to 153 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
Vietjet is the second Vietnamese airline to launch services to Melbourne since borders reopened, following Bamboo Airways’ arrival in April 2022. Existing services from Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar have also resumed. Both Bamboo Airways and Vietjet will establish their national headquarters in Melbourne.
Prior to the pandemic, state figures show an estimated 53,500 visitors to Victoria were from Vietnam. Vietnam was the 10th most popular destination for Australian residents in 2022, with close to 100,000 visitors up to October last year, though this was still 65 per cent below the same period in 2019 before the pandemic.
The nation is also a major source market for international students for the state, with around 9500 Vietnamese students enrolled in Victorian institutions.
“Vietnam is one of the top five markets for international students for the country but it’s also one of the largest markets for international students for Victoria. So this just continues to make sure that we get those international students into Australia,” said Argus.
Vietjet’s flights are expected to add more than 136,000 seats to Melbourne annually, and boost the state economy by $97 million each year once fully operational.
The carrier’s arrival will join a wave of low-cost carriers with newly-launched Asian routes to Australia, helping to take pressure off sky-high fares caused by pent-up demand and capacity constraints.
Jetstar’s inaugural flight from Seoul to Sydney commenced in November, followed by the resumption of AirAsia X’s non-stop services from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne and Perth, and the return of its KL-Auckland via Sydney route. The inaugural T’way Air Sydney-Seoul service and Thai AirAsia X’s first flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Bangkok also took off in December.
See also: Airline review: Bamboo Airways’ first Australian routes offer business class on the cheap
See also: Cheap(er) flights to Thailand as two new routes take off
