The Garuda Airline, from Indonesia, is planning to open a route to directly connect the Indonesian capital of Jakarta with the Vietnamese metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City next year.
On the sideline of a meeting with several Asian press agencies in Jakarta on the afternoon of July 22nd, Agus Priyanto, the Garuda Airline’s vice president in commerce said that the Vietnamese market is currently small, but strongly developing. “We want to expand our network here”, he stressed.
At present, Garuda Airline has daily flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Jakarta, with a transit in Singapore. Therefore, the opening of a direct route will offer time-savings for passengers.
As Iswandi Said, the Garuda Airline’s Asia CEO, said up to 80% of Vietnamese passengers using Garuda’s service are interested in dropping in Singapore for further purposes. Thus, the opening of new route will not affect the circulation of the current route with a transit in Singapore.
Currently, 70% of passengers taking flights from Ho Chi Minh City to Jakarta are for work, while the remaining is for travel. In contrast, the flight route from Ho Chi Minh City to Bali via Singapore or Jakarta is overwhelmed with travelling tourists.
