National carrier Vietnam Airlines has been awarded a foreign air carrier permit from the US Department of Transportation, Flightglobal reported.
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The airline will also be permitted to fly to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Seattle and Dallas-Fort Worth. It can also continue flying to destinations in Canada including Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.
Vietnam Airlines and Delta Air Lines recently upgraded their codeshare relationship, with Vietnam Airlines carrying Delta code on the Hanoi-Tokyo route starting in October.
The US awarded Vietnam Category 1 (CAT 1) status in February, which was a key step in opening up flights between the two countries that lack nonstop links. With this status, Vietnamese air carriers—most notably Vietnam Airlines, VietJet Air and Bamboo Airways—are permitted to apply for the requisite regulatory approvals to fly to US cities.
Currently, all countries in the world are subject to supervision by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for aviation safety. However, the US required a separate review from its Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for opening a direct flight to the country.
Despite growing demands for traveling, Vietnam has not established a direct flight route to the US. Passengers flying to the US or from the US to Vietnam normally have to take connecting flights at Asian airports such as Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, or Taipei and using air services from foreign airlines.
Since 2012, Vietnam has aimed to qualify for CAT 1 and later sought supports from Boeing for enhancing its civil aviation capabilities. FAA carried out the first review in 2013 but found 49 shortcomings, and nearly half of them were due to the operation system and regulation.
The second review was launched in November 2018 with positive result.
Obtaining CAT 1 would create major advantages for future cooperation between two countries’ airlines, said Dinh Viet Thang, head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV).
Bamboo Airways recently expressed its ambition to establish direct flight route to the US, which is scheduled for operation in the first quarter of 2021.
In 2018, total number of air passenger between the US and Vietnam reached 757,000, up 8% year-on-year.
