Beijing (VNA) – Vietnam Airlines, the national flag carrier, started using its new generation aircraft Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner for the Hanoi-Beijing (China) rཧoute, with the first flight landing in Beijing on April 30.

The move aims to better meet the increasing travel demand while affirming the air carrier’s prestige in the Chinese market. Vietnam Airlines now operates five flights between the two capital cities each week, including three using wide-body Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Airbus A321 flies on the remaining days. Apart from Beijing, the carrier is providing services to 15 Chinese cities with more than 200 flights per week. On April 1, the airline rolled out its new A350-900 XWB aircraft for the route between Ho Chi Minh City and Shanghai with one flight each day. Addressing the April 30 ceremony, Kieu Anh, head of Vietnam Airlines representative office in China, said the neighbouring country plays an important role in the carrier’s business strategy. In the first quarter of this year, the airline raked in 7 million USD from the market, a rise of 30 percent compared with the figure recorded in the corresponding time last year, he said. With the new service, Vietnam Airlines hopes to attract more Chinese visitors to Vietnam, thus contributing to enhancing economic, political and cultural ties between the two countries, he said. Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner is the latest version of the Boeing 787 genre that is able to carry more passengers on a longer distance. The advanced technology applied on board helps save 20 percent of the fuel required and reduces 20 percent of emissions compared to contemporary models. The carrier’s first flight by Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner landed at Heathrow Airport in London on September 1, 2015. Since July 2015, Vietnam Airlines has become the first airline in Asia to receive and deploy the world’s new-generation wide-body Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and Airbus A350-900, helping the carrier expand its domestic and international routes and improve its service quality. In the first quarter of this year, the airline transported more than 4.6 million passengers and nearly 61.000 tonnes of cargoes, earning over 850 million USD, up 13.3 percent year-on-year and fulfilling 26.4 percent of its yearly target.-VNA