The national-flag carrier, Vietnam Airlines, will increase weekly flights between Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City to Japan’s Tokyo to 14 from the current seven, meeting rising demand of Japanese tourists during summer.

The new flights will depart from Tan Son Nhat airport in HCM City at 6:05 am and land at Tokyo’s Narita airport at 13:50 everyday from March 28, the airline’s representative office in Japan said, adding that vice versa, new flights will take off from Narita airport at 19:00 and arrive in Tan Son Nhat airport at 23:00 the same day.

The new flights will be operated with aircraft Airbus A321-200 with 168 seats for the economic class and 16 business class seats.

The airline will also increase the number of flights on the Hanoi-Osaka route to seven from five a week from July 1 in anticipation of increasing demand as the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi is approaching.

With the latest addition of flights to Hanoi and HCM City, Vietnam Airlines will operate a total of 43 flights a week from Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat international airports to four Japanese cities of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka, accounting for over 50 percent of the aviation market from Japan to Vietnam.

Veitnam will also open the Hanoi-Yangon (Myanmar) service on Mar. 2, turning Vietnam into a convenient transit point in Southeast Asia./.