Bamboo Airways made its first flight to the United States from Noibai International Airport, Hanoi (HAN) to San Francisco Airport (SFO) operated by Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
The historic non-stop flight took off from Noibai International Airport to San Francisco International Airport by Bamboo Airway's experienced flight crew and modern Boeing B787-9 Dreamliner on September 24#BambooAirways #USA #SanFrancisco pic.twitter.com/4sNC0tcHwK
— Bamboo Airways (@bamboo_airways) September 24, 2021
This is part of Bamboo Airways’ strategy to start scheduled operations to North America. During the last quarter of 2020 the airline received its permits from the Department of Transportation (DOT) to start flights between Vietnam and the United States requesting flights to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Dallas and Seattle with technical stopovers in Asia (Nagoya, Osaka and/or Taipei) or Canada (Montreal, Toronto and/or Vancouver).
Bamboo Airways will operate a dozen flights between San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX), with the intention of scheduling its flights between Hanoi (HAN) and/or Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) to the United States by the end of 2021 or by 2022. Previously such flights were not feasible as only in 2019 Vietnam was granted Category 1 classification by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Previously United Airlines was the only operator between the United States and Vietnam, they operated Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) via Hong Kong (HKG) with Boeing 747-400, then they were cancelled due to their low profitability.
Bamboo Airways is a Vietnam airline with bases in Hanoi (HAN) and Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) started as a domestic carrier and now has ambitious plans for long-haul services, during 2020 they had planned to start flying to destinations in Europe, Prague (PRG) and Munich (MUC) but failed to materialize due to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its widebody fleet is exclusively Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft.
According to OAG data, during 2016 the market between Vietnam and the United States was one of the most underserved without direct flights, 203,359 of passengers moved from Los Angeles (LAX) – Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) and 127,016 from San Francisco (SFO) – Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) via stopovers.
