Bangkok Airways commences a thrice weekly air service between Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) tomorrow using 120 seat Boeing 717 aircraft. The new flights on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons will take 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Confirmation of the new flights which start March 3 was made earlier this week by Bangkok Airways representatives attending the Travel Indochina roadshows organised in Sydney and Melbourne.
[Pictured: Chulin Kocharoen, Assistant Sales Director, Bangkok Airways, forecast the launch of new services from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh and Pakse at the recent ASEAN Tourism Forum in Singapore.]
These flights will certainly be of interest to Australian travellers who are either having difficulty in securing seats to HCMC or want to easily combine Thailand and Vietnam in their holiday itinerary, said a spokesperson for Bangkok Airways.
Next month, the carrier which promotes itself with the tagline “Asia’s Boutique Airline” begins a twice weekly service between Bangkok and Pakse, an emerging eco tourism destination in the far south of Laos that is home to a number of ethnic minorities. A 70 seat ATR will be deployed on the route from April 10, with flying time will be one hour.
On the same day, Siem Reap Airways International, an airline affiliated with Bangkok Airways, begins a twice weekly service between Pakse and Siem Reap using ATRs. The outgoing flight to Siem Reap is timed for a convenient connection with the incoming flight from Bangkok.
[Pictured: A Bangkok Airways aircraft set to drive the airline’s expansion in Indochina, also set to be popular with Australians wishing to explore new destinations in the diverse region]
The new Bangkok Airways flights to HCMC and Pakse follow the launch of three A320 services a week to Fukuoka in early December, four A320 services a week to Hiroshima in early December and the resumption of the Maldives service with a twice weekly A320 frequency in late November.
While the Bangkok-based carrier does not have plans to include Australia in its growing network, the country is ranked in the airline’s top 10 markets with about US$5 million generated in revenue last year. Australia “shows a constant growth of some 20 per cent annually,” according to figures released by the airline.
Exclusive Report by Thomas E. King, TravelMole’s Travel & Lifestyle Editor
