Vietnam Airlines To Resume Air Routes To RoK

National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines is poised to resume flights between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to Incheon in the Republic of Korea (RoK), with four flights set to depart for the Korean city each week.

Flights operating on the Ho Chi Minh City-Incheon route will depart at 23:10 beginning from June 3 and will run two flights per week throughout June. Elsewhere, flights on the Hanoi-Incheon route are scheduled to depart at 23:35 starting from June 2 with flights running twice per week. 

According to a Vietnam Airlines representative, the cost of travel to the RoK from Vietnamese destinations is set to range from between US$195 and US$600 per one-way ticket.

Moreover, return flights from the RoK will not be conducted following a request made by the Vietnamese Government, therefore passengers can transit through Incheon to continue their journey to some cities in the United States, according to the Vietnam Airlines representative. 

In line with the current situation relating to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), tourism companies affirmed that this is not an appropriate period of time to tap into the outbound tourism market.

Indeed, the majority of tour operators are currently focusing their attention on developing the domestic tourism market through stimulus packages in response to the ‘Vietnamese people travel around Vietnam’ campaign, although it is anticipated that international markets will recover next year, said Le Hoa Hiep, director of a local travel firm based in Ho Chi Minh City.

Furthermore, a representative of the Korea Tourism Organization in Vietnam also confirmed that as a result of the complicated nature of the COVID-19 epidemic, the tourism body has yet to launch any schemes aimed at stimulating tourism demand from the Vietnamese market.

Source: VOV