Kochi, a city situated in the southwestern coastal state of Kerala in India, will soon join the list of destinations served by Vietjet as capacity between Vietnam and India continues to climb.

The LCC plans to commence operations on a route connecting Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN ) to Cochin International Airport (COK) starting from Aug. 12. The service, utilizing Airbus A320 aircraft, will operate four times a week.

Vietjet initially launched routes from Hanoi (HAN) and Ho Chi Minh City to Delhi in late 2019, marking its entry into the Indian market. However, the airline’s operations were suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Service to Delhi resumed in April 2022, and flights from both HAN and SGN to Mumbai were added in June 2022. Operations to Ahmedabad in western India started the following September.

Kochi will therefore become the fourth Indian city served by Vietjet, increasing the airline’s schedule to the country to 32 weekly flights. The 3,304 km (1,784 nm) route from SGN will also be COK’s first nonstop link to Vietnam.

According to Sabre Market Intelligence figures, O&D traffic between Kochi and Vietnam was 9,400 two-way passengers in 2019, with Kochi-Ho Chi Minh City accounting for about half the traffic. However, there was almost no nonstop capacity between Vietnam and India during the first nine months of the year, making travel between the destinations more challenging.

OAG Schedules Analyser data shows that since IndiGo introduced nonstop fights from Kolkata to HAN and SGN in October 2019, nonstop capacity between India and Vietnam has continued to rise with Vietjet and Vietnam Airlines entering the market. For the week commencing July 3, 2023, there are 24,084 two-way weekly seats between the countries. Vietjet has a capacity share of 54.8%, while Vietnam Airlines has 23.6% and IndiGo has 21.6%.

Vietjet’s planned Indian expansion comes days after the airline announced its intention to increase the frequency of flights to and from Australia. From Dec. 1, service between SGN and Melbourne will rise from 3X-weekly to daily, while SGN-Sydney also grows from 3X-weekly to daily from Dec. 5. Additionally, SGN-Brisbane will increase from 2X-weekly to 3X-weekly starting Dec. 6.

Vietjet launched Airbus A330 flights from SGN to both Sydney and Melbourne in April, marking its debut in Australia. The route to Brisbane started in June.