Vietnam – Russia air route anniversary marked

Moscow (VNA) – The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines held a ceremony in Moscow on September 7 to mark the 25th anniversary of its route to Russia.

The event took place on the occasion of the official visit to Russia by General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, and was attended by many leading officials of the Party, State, National Assembly and Government.

Prominent among the attendees was Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh who delivered his congratulatory address.

Vietnam Airlines opened its first route from Hanoi to Russia on July 7, 1993 with stopovers in Ho Chi Minh City, Dubai or Berlin. Later on, it started to conduct direct flights connecting the two countries in 2005, increasing the volume of passengers by over 10 folds compared to the time before that. It is projected that by the end of this year, Vietnam Airlines will have served about 1.6 million passengers travelling between the two countries.

Russia always remains in the list of top 10 markets of tourists to Vietnam, with a stable yearly growth averaging 30 percent. Thanks to the deployment of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft with a frequency of three flights per week starting in March, the revenue from passengers and cargo to Vietnam Airlines increases by 14 percent and 69 percent, respectively, over the same period last year.

Also on September 7, Vietnam Airlines and the Russian flag carrier Aeroflot signed in Moscow an agreement on the development of cooperation, under which the two will, from next year, implement the code sharing on Vietnamese and Russian domestic flights.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Vietnam Airlines Director General Duong Tri Thanh described the anniversary as an important landmark in the connection between the two countries, calling the flights the cultural bridges linking European and Asian civilizations.-VNA