Emirates signs understandings with Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet

Emirates signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with Vietnam Airlines and VietJet during the Vietnam-UAE Business Forum.

These agreements aim to strengthen connectivity and offer more travel choices between Dubai and its Vietnamese gateways Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

The MoUs were signed on the sidelines of the Vietnam – UAE Business Forum, held at the Hilton Dubai Palm Jumeirah hotel in Dubai on 28 October.

Emirates deputy president and chief commercial officer Adnan Kazim attended the signing ceremony along with government leaders, ministers, and business representatives from both countries. 

Airline senior-vice-president for commercial operations in the Far East Orhan Abbas delivered a keynote highlighting the airline’s commitment to deepening its presence in Vietnam, a market it has been serving since 2012, supporting trade and tourism links between the UAE and Vietnam, as well as offering customers convenient travel options.

A market offering major opportunities

Kazim commented: “Enhancing our cooperation with like-minded partners like Vietnam Airlines and VietJet is integral to our core commercial strategy to better connect customers across points beyond our own network. Vietnam is a market that presents tremendous opportunities to boost tourism and trade as a key hub in Southeast Asia, and Emirates supports the UAE government’s ongoing efforts to elevate its existing economic ties with Vietnam.”

He added that the decades-long cooperation with Vietnam Airlines has enabled Emirates to enhance connectivity between Vietnam and Dubai, and this new understanding is seen as an opportunity to explore further elevating this partnership while also establishing a new strategic cooperation with VietJet. 

Kazim concluded by saying: “We look forward to growing our footprint in Vietnam and exploring more opportunities to widen the scope of our partnerships in the future.”

What each understanding entails 

The Emirates MoU with Vietnam Airlines sets the framework to expand the current cooperation in place between both airlines. This includes enhancing connectivity on routes beyond the existing interline as well as the potential to add reciprocal loyalty benefits. The airlines will also enter exploratory discussions around potential collaborations across cargo and technical services to create seamless experiences for travellers. The long-standing relationship between Emirates and Vietnam Airlines, which began with a bilateral interline cooperation in 1994, has helped connect customers to 22 domestic and 15 regional points in Vietnam Airline’s network, as well as 12 points in Emirates’ global network.

With VietJet, on the other hand, both airlines will explore joint initiatives to help promote visitor traffic between the UAE and Vietnam, and strengthen the commercial cooperation between both carriers. The MoU will further aim to enhance connectivity to popular destinations in VietJet’s domestic and regional network via Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, among others, while offering VietJet customers increased access to Emirates’ global network via its Dubai hub on a single itinerary and one baggage policy.