India, Vietnam in talks to increase bilateral flights
Mint. A bilateral air service agreement mandates a limit on the number of seats or flights that airlines can allocate between two countries. India currently has bilateral air service agreements with 116 countries.
Under open skies, airlines can deploy any number of flights between the two countries. India shares open skies with countries such as the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand among others. The current bilateral air service agreement between India and Vietnam permit 28 weekly departures from metro cities.
Vietnamese carriers including full-service carrier Vietnam Airlines and low-cost airline VietJet have already exhausted their share by operating 14 weekly departures each. While the connectivity from metro cities will depend on increase in bilateral flying rights, Vietnam Airlines is studying the pool of non-metro cities with international status such as Pune, Ahmedabad, Amritsar and Lucknow to connect Tier-2 cities in India to Vietnam, an official said. Direct flight connectivity between India and Vietnam is fairly recent and was initiated by Indian low-cost carrier IndiGo in October 2019 with non-stop flights between Hanoi and Kolkata.
Earlier, erstwhile Jet Airways had also started flights to Vietnam only to discontinue the service months later. IndiGo is currently the sole Indian carrier operating between India and Vietnam. Full-service carrier Vistara has also plans to operate daily flights to Hanoi from Mumbai.
IndiGo now operates 14 weekly flights between India and Vietnam. Full-service carrier Vietnam Airlines launched direct flights between the two countries in June 2022 with non-stop flights between New Delhi and Ho Chi Minh City. "Now we have three airlines between Vietnam and India.
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