From left, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, New Zealand Ambassador to Vietnam Caroline Beresford, VietJet Vice Chairman Nguyen Anh Tuan and Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.
New Zealand will become the latest addition to VietJet’s expanding international network, as the LCC revealed plans to restore nonstop flights from Vietnam for the first time in seven years with a new Ho Chi Minh City-Auckland service.
The announcement was made during an event attended by Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, along with senior officials and business leaders from both countries. The service will run four times per week and is scheduled to launch in September.
The 5,502-mi. (4,781-nm) route was last served by Air New Zealand for three consecutive summer seasons until October 2018. Since then, no airline has operated scheduled nonstop flights between Vietnam and New Zealand.
Luxon welcomed the new flights, highlighting its importance in strengthening bilateral ties. “This enables lots of opportunities across the board, not just in tourism but also in trade and also in education,” he said.
According to Sabre Market Intelligence data, O&D traffic between Vietnam and New Zealand totaled about 63,000 two-way passengers in 2024, with Ho Chi Minh City-Auckland and Hanoi-Auckland accounting for the majority of the traffic. The largest one-stop market was Singapore, followed by Guangzhou and Sydney.
In 2018, the last year of nonstop service, O&D traffic between the two countries was about 66,000 passengers. At the time, Air New Zealand attributed its decision to withdraw from the Ho Chi Minh City-Auckland route to the need to protect against unexpected disruptions caused by issues with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines powering its Boeing 787 fleet.
VietJet’s planned entry into the New Zealand market is part of its broader Asia-Pacific expansion strategy, which has already included a major push into Australia. The LCC launched flights to Australia in April 2023, operating Airbus A330 services from Ho Chi Minh City to Melbourne and Sydney.
Since then, the airline has expanded its Australian network with four additional routes, adding Ho Chi Minh City-Brisbane, Ho Chi Minh City-Perth, Hanoi-Melbourne and Hanoi-Sydney. OAG data shows that VietJet currently operates about 16,400 two-way seats between Vietnam and Australia, holding a 48% market share. It leads Vietnam Airlines (38.9%) and Jetstar (13.1%).
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