Bamboo Airways Information Intentions to Fly to San Francisco and Los Angeles – AirlineGeeks.com
[ Routes ]June 6, 2021 10:31 a.m. ET
From Winston Shek
Bamboo Airways applies for flights to San Francisco and Los Angeles
In a recent filing from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Bamboo Airways announced its intention to fly from Ho Chi Minh City to Los Angeles and San Francisco from the third quarter of 2021 after previous reports on the airline’s plans to fly to San Francisco Francisco to start.
In April, AirlineGeeks reported that Bamboo Airways chairman Trinh Van Quyet plans to start flights to San Francisco in September, pending market conditions rebound.
“We will start operating charter flights to the US in July and aim to start commercial non-stop flights between Ho Chi Minh City and San Francisco in September with an initial frequency of three flights a week,” he said at the time .
According to VnExpress, Vietnam’s Department of Transportation completes the process of naming Bamboo Airways for its first charter flights to the United States. Bamboo Airways charters would likely serve as return flights for Vietnamese citizens looking to return home as non-essential travel to Vietnam is barred to everyone else. It will also meet important travel needs between the two countries such as: B. for Vietnamese students and relatives returning to the US. Currently, any indication of what the objectives or dates of this charter would be remains unseen.
In addition, the low-cost carrier finalized a preliminary schedule for flights to San Francisco and Los Angeles after receiving approval for the proposed flight times at the two slot-facilitated airports. Its preliminary schedule in San Francisco is arriving at 10 a.m. and departing at 1 p.m., departing from Ho Chi Minh City in the late morning or early afternoon and arriving in Ho Chi Minh City in the evening enables. In the meantime, the preliminary schedule for Los Angeles is a 9:30 a.m. arrival and a 12:30 p.m. departure, allowing for similar departures and arrivals to and from Ho Chi Minh City.
The flights are operated between four and seven times a week.
Bamboo Airways will use the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner on the route. The long-haul aircraft have two seat configurations, one with 294 seats with 26 business class seats, 21 premium economy seats and 247 economy seats and another with 292 seats with 30 business class seats, 36 premium economy seats and 226 economy seats.
In its application to the Department of Transportation, Bamboo Airways applied for the rights to flights to Seattle, New York and Dallas, with possible stopovers in Osaka and Nagoya, Japan and Taipei, Taiwan, and the rights to continue flights to Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, Canada. All of these routes have been selected by the Vietnamese government. However, the airline does not have fifth freedom rights between the US and Japan and will fly non-stop to Los Angeles and San Francisco while the stopover request is pending.
In addition, Bamboo Airways plans to codeshare with a “large” US airline. In the case of codeshare with an airline, the Hanoi-based airline has the right to codeshare flights to 25 destinations in the USA: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Newark, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, St. Louis, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington DC, and Wichita.
In addition, Bamboo Airways has begun hiring staff for its San Francisco office, including a station manager in San Francisco, a positive sign of concrete service plans.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Bamboo Airways had announced plans for US services such as the use of an Airbus A380 over Taipei, but these were never realized. In addition, the airline had announced its intention to fly to the US by late 2020 or early 2021, but that never materialized.
Prior to the pandemic, the airline’s route network consisted of a sizeable domestic route network and flights to Japan, South Korea and Taipei, and planned to introduce flights to Prague, Czech Republic and Munich, Germany in 2020. Currently, in addition to US services, Bamboo Airways is proposing flights to Australia, the UK and additional flights to Europe before.
Currently, Vietnam Airlines plans to offer flights between Vietnam and the US from 2021, although it is unclear whether they will start these flights. In 2020, the airline repatriated Vietnamese citizens via San Francisco, Houston and Washington Dulles.
According to RoutesOnline, Saber data shows that O&D traffic from Vietnam to the US totaled 1.77 million passengers in 2019, including 300,300 passengers on the Ho Chi Minh to Los Angeles route and 198,000 passengers on the Ho Chi Minh to Los Angeles route San Francisco.
There are concerns about profitability given the demand numbers between the two destinations. In 2018, Vietnam Airlines CEO Doung Tri Thanh stated, “Vietnam Airlines could experience an average annual loss of $ 30 million in the first five years of operation if we open a direct route to the US.” 5 years.
Those losses could be suffered by Bamboo Airways as they launch their flight routes, a blow to their reported $ 13 million profit in 2020.
Ever since Winston was a toddler, he has always been fascinated by airplanes. From landing wide-body aircraft in Washington Dulles to traveling the world, Winston always kept his eyes on the sky. Winston began aviation photography in 2018 and now occasionally posts his photos on his Instagram account. He has previously written for a blog. In his spare time, Winston loves playing chess, recreational activities and watching sports. Winston plans to look into the future too looking to serve the aviation industry.
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