Vietnamese budget carrier VietJet Air officially launched service between Ho Chi Minh City and the Central Highlands resort town of Da Lat (Lam Dong province) on February 26, its 22nd route so far.

The HCM City-Da Lat route operates seven weekly round flights with a total of 2,520 seats.

On the occasion, the airline will put on sale 30,000 discount tickets on all its routes at just 22,000 VND (1 USD) during three days from March 5.

The promotional programme will apply for flights from March 22 to May 20 with the exception of national holidays.

The Vietnamese low-cost airline, which started to fly in late 2011 , recently has finalised an order with Airbus Group to purchase and lease 100 aircraft with a total contract value of 9.1 billion USD.

According to Nguyen Thanh Hung, Vice Chairman of VietJetAir, the airline transported more than 4.3 million passengers last year, accounting for about 26 percent of domestic market share. After more than two years of operation, the airline now has a fleet of 11 leased A320s. Besides domestic destinations, the carrier also flies to Bangkok , Seoul and China ’s Kunming .

The carrier plans to open a direct route from Vietnam to Singapore this year and other routes to North East Asia in the time to come.-VNA