After a prolonged delay, VietJet Air's Thai sister airline is now ready for take-off, with a launch date and first route now fixed.
Thai VietJet Air (TVJA), part of Vietnam's fledgling no-frills carrier, is due to start commercial service over Thai skies on March 29, flying from Bangkok to Phuket, a senior executive of the parent airline said yesterday.
While declining to provide details of the inaugural flight, the executive confirmed that flights from Bangkok to Udon Thani and Krabi would follow, along with international service between the Thai capital and Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City.
However, no specific dates or frequencies for those routes have been made known.
TVJA's launch comes after the 51% interest in the airline held by a Thai investor changed hands.
Somphong Sooksanguan, the original Thai partner, recently sold his entire 51% holding in TVJA to unnamed Thai interest groups.
Mr Somphong, owner of Kannithi Aviation, operator of commuter airline Kan Air, cited differences between his and VietJet Air's business management styles as the main reason for the sale.
Meanwhile, the VietJet Air executive said the parent airline would dispatch a second, new Airbus A320 by late next month to support TVJA's scheduled start-up.
An A320 that was flown for the parent in Vietnam for less than a year has already been assigned to TVJA.
VietJet Air has taken delivery of its 21st A320, which touched down at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City last Thursday.
The aeroplane is the third of 100 single-aisle A320 jets the Vietnamese low-cost carrier has ordered from European plane maker Airbus.
In an interview in Bangkok last December, TVJA chairman Nguyen Thanh Hung talked about putting four Airbus 320s into service this year, adding another three to five aircraft annually.
He also announced an ambitious goal of carrying 1 million passengers in the first year of operation.
TVJA has an international expansion in the pipeline that will cover China, India, South Korea, Myanmar, Singapore and Malaysia from its Suvarnabhumi airport hub, Mr Nguyen said.
VietJet Air already serves Bangkok with regular service from Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
The airline said it had carried 10 million passengers over the three years of its existence.
Vietjet Air has now ramped up frequencies to 150 flights a day on 28 domestic and international routes, with service to Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan and Cambodia.
Chief executive Luu Duc Khanh recently told The Wall Street Journal that the airline was planning to hold an initial public offering sometime this year in a bid to raise US$800 million, largely to pay for new aeroplanes.