Hanoi based Bamboo Airways has just wet-leased a Nepalese A320-200 from Himalayan Airlines according to CH-Aviation.

The four-year-old narrowbody Airbus arrived in Hanoi from Kathmandu on May 17th and has been operating on behalf of the Vietnamese airline since May 20th.

Flying out of Ho Chi Minh City, the aircraft serves southern Vietnam with daily flights to Hanoi and Da Nang.

Other wet-lease aircraft in the Bamboo Airways fleet includes an A320 from Cambodia's Sky Angkor Airlines and an A320 belonging to Turkey's Freebird Airlines.

Additional planes flown by Bamboo include one A319-100, two A320-200s, and three 240-seat A321-200neo aircraft.

Who are Bamboo Airways?

With a motto of “More than just a flight,” Bamboo Airways were formed in 2017 by the FLC Group, a consortium owned by Vietnam’s richest man Trinh Van Quyet.

Bamboo Airways mission is to enhance the standing of Vietnam and its people to a wider audience, while also connecting tourist regions with the country’s main cities.

 “We have a clear strategy to build Bamboo Airways as a 5-star airline operating both domestic and international routes. Besides an outstanding business model, we also aspire to deliver new service standards to our passengers with comfort, relaxation and satisfaction on every trip”- Chairman Trinh Van Quyet of FLC Group.

Bamboo Airways have lofty ambitions

Besides domestic flights and inter Asian routes bamboo Airways also has plans to fly to North America and Europe.

In March of 2018 Bamboo Airways signed a deal with Airbus Industries for 24 A321neo aircraft worth $3.1 billion.

The Vietnamese start-up continued its aggressive acquisition of aircraft signing a deal with Boeing to purchase 10 wide-body 787-9 Dreamliners on the sidelines of the second United States-North Korean summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

When speaking about the deal during his trip to Vietnam, President Trump said, according to Reuters:

“They (Vietnam) just made a very large order in the United States – and we appreciate that – for many billions of dollars, which means jobs for the United States and great, great equipment for Vietnam”.

Moving on from that, Bamboo Airways placed a further order with Boeing for an additional 20 Dreamliner’s worth $5.6 billion.

This now means that Bamboo Airways will have  30 Boeing 787 wide-body jets, the first of which is scheduled to arrive in the third quarter of 2020.

During negotiations with Boeing, Bamboo Airlines also talked about the possibility of placing an order with the American company for 25 narrow-body Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in a deal worth $2.5 billion.

Having not signed anything yet regarding the 737 MAX, we can assume that Bamboo Airways will now be looking to either renegotiate any provisional agreement or even tear it up. This assessment comes after the grounding of the 737 MAX following two deadly crashes.

Current and proposed routes

As of 2019 Bamboo Airways fly’s 20 routes within Vietnam linking the key cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh with Can Tho, Da Lat, Pleiku, Vinh, Quang Ninh, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Phu Quoc and Thanh Hoa.

Assertively spreading its footprint across Vietnam, Bamboo Airways hopes to be flying 37-40 domestic routes by the end of 2019.

Internationally, Bamboo Airways is hoping to commence service to foreign destinations with priorities being given to Asian destinations such as Taiwan Thailand, China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan. The airline also has plans for flights to the UK, France and Australia.

Knowing how large a market the airline could have with the United States, Bamboo Airlines has already set up an office in America. This is to help them get a head start on all the requirements needed in order to obtain a licence to fly to cities in the U.S.A.

When speaking about a direct flight between Vietnam and the United States, company chairman Trinh Van Quyet said in a press release: “

Vietnam and the U.S. economic and trade relations have seen rapid expansion. Non-stop air routes between the two countries are of essence accordingly. Direct flights between Vietnam and the U.S. will not only push tourism activities which are aimed to draw nearly one million American tourists by 2020 but also further facilitate bilateral trade and investment.”