Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways wants to bring its 787 fleet to North America. The carrier filed an application with the US Department of Transportation to offer service to five US cities on its own aircraft, with service potentially launching as soon as Q3 2021.
The application seeks permission to operate between Ho Chi Minh City and Los Angeles and San Francisco in third quarter 2021, with 4-7 weekly frequencies. The flights will include a stop en route, via an intermediate point at Taipei, Osaka, or Nagoya. At least that’s what the application specifies. The carrier had been rumored to be considering non-stop flights from Vietnam to the US with its 787-9 fleet.
Additional service could potentially be added to Dallas-Fort Worth, New York City, or Seattle under the US-Vietnam bilateral air services agreement.
Bamboo could also operate onward connections from its US gateways to Canada. As part of the application it seeks authorization to offer additional flights to Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto, Canada on its own planes.
Bamboo also notes that it does not hold local traffic rights between Japan and the USA; no such statement is made about Taipei.
Moreover, the carrier requested permission to serve as many as 25 more US markets via a codeshare partner from the five main gateways. The potential codeshare destinations, chosen by the Vietnamese government in 2005 per the bilateral agreement, are: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Newark, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland (OR), St. Louis, San Francisco, San Jose (CA), Seattle, Washington D.C., and Wichita.
A potential codeshare partner is not identified in the filing, though the carrier says it “plans codeshare service with a major U.S. carrier on routes between Vietnam and the United States.”
The request comes seven months after the company started the paperwork process to gain access to the US market.
Bamboo Airways’ Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner can carry a maximum of 294 passengers, including a 26 business class seats, 21 premium economy seats and 247 economy seats.
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SGN & HAN or low yielding. I wonder if they are planning on code sharing with AA or UA. AA seems to be on a roll with code sharing lately so I would bet on AA with the code share.
Those markets historically were low-yielding. Hard to say for sure what the new reality is anywhere right now, though.
As for who a partner might be, United has a JV with ANA that I believe covers the Vietnam-US market. AA has a similar JV with JAL, I believe.
Prior to its decision to join oneworld I would have bet on Alaska Airlines as the most likely partner. Those odds are a little lower now, I think, but still decent. The limited permitted destinations – by treaty – makes it an interesting challenge.