First international flight to Vietnam is from South Korea

Vietnam will resume the first international flight from South Korea to the country on September 25 after months of travel restrictions due to Covid-19.

Vietnam Airlines is allowed to resume international flights. Photo: VNA

Vietnam Airlines, the national flag carrier, will operate the Seoul-Hanoi route with Airbus A350 that is able to carry more than 300 passengers.

Vietnam Airlines said tickets are not sold via its website but through agents in Vietnam and South Korea.

It will be the first commercial international flight to Vietnam approved by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAA) after the country halted all international flights from March 25 due to the pandemic.

To make this air route possible, on September 17-18, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha visited Vietnam and resumption of air services was one of issues during talks with her Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak, about 9,000 South Koreans, mostly businesspeople, have been allowed to enter Vietnam in exception to entry curbs since the pandemic broke out, according to South Korea’s foreign ministry.

Vietnam resumed international air routes on September 18 with a flight from Hanoi to Tokyo to fly nearly 60 passengers who are Vietnamese students and workers and Japanese nationals.

The CAA will license commercial flights to Vietnam from six countries and one territory namely South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

Passengers in such flights are (1) foreign holders of diplomatic passports and their relatives; (2) foreign experts, investors, managers, high-skilled workers and their relatives, foreign students, and foreigners who are Vietnamese people’s relatives; (3) Vietnamese people returning to the country.

The passengers come on conditions of showing coronavirus-free certificates within three days before the departure; confirmation of a quarantine facility in Vietnam; installing apps for contact tracing; and making health declaration.

Time for quarantine might be less than five day for passengers from selected routes and 14 days for those from a third country.