Qatar Airways will launch direct flights to the central city of Da Nang on December 19. (Photo: qatarairways.com)
Hanoi (VNA) - QatarAirways has announced it will launch direct flights to the central city of DaNang on December 19.
With this route, the beautiful coastal city will become the third Vietnamesedestination on the award-winning airline’s rapidly expanding global network.
The carrier will offer four-timeweekly flights with a Boeing 787-8 aircraft, featuring 22 seats in BusinessClass and 232 seats in Economy Class.
Qatar Airways Group Chief ExecutiveAkbar Al Baker said “This new direct route demonstrates our commitment toexpanding our presence in the Far East, a highly-important market for QatarAirways."
Qatar Airways began direct servicesto HCM City in 2007, and launched its Hanoi service in 2010. Currently, theairline provides twice-daily direct flights to Vietnam’s capital city and 10times weekly flights to HCM City.
In October 2017, Qatar Airwaysannounced its interline partnership with Vietnamese low-cost airline Vietjet Air,allowing Qatar Airways’ passengers to travel to and from points in Vietnam notserved directly by Qatar Airways using a single reservation across bothairlines’ networks.
Da Nang expects the new air routewill help promote trade, investment and tourism between the central region andthe Middle East.
The number of travellers to the city has been increasing each year, with anaverage annual growth of 20.06 percent between 2013 and 2017.
It hosted 6.6 million tourists, including1.67 million foreigners, last year. The figure was more than 4 million visitors inthe first half of 2018, surging by almost 30 percent year-on-year. Notably,vacationers from the Republic of Korea shot up by 100 percent to account forhalf of the over 1.6 million foreign arrivals in the city during the period.
Da Nang is a popular touristdestination in central Vietnam. The online marketplace and hospitality serviceAirbnb announced a list of the world’s top 10 destinations for 2018, in whichthe city ranked fifth in booking surges of up to 255 percent.
Additionally, the Da Nang International Airport was ranked third amongst thetop global airports in 2014, according to a survey by Dragon Air.–VNA
VNA
