Bamboo Airways to fly between Melbourne and Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnamese carrier Bamboo Airways will launch a direct service connecting Ho Chi Minh City with  Melbourne with an inaugural flight planned for Saturday, 19 February 2022.

Bamboo Airways plan to have two weekly return flights using the wide-body aircraft Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, and this will be increased to four a week later based on demand for the service.

The direct service would help cut travel time between Vietnam and Australia to eight hours.

Over 300,000 Vietnamese live and work in Australia, mainly in Sydney and Melbourne with Australia becoming one of Vietnam's biggest feeder tourism markets, with more than 383,000 arrivals in 2019, according to data from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.