Flying the world’s 4th busiest domestic route with the best available airline in 2024

Welcome back to my blog. I’m going to share my experience with Vietnam Airlines on the busiest route in Vietnam. There are five airlines that operate this route, Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, Bamboo Airways, Pacific Airlines and the new airline Vietravel Airlines with Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air as the dominators. For Vietnam Airlines, they usually use wide-body aircraft A350 and B787 family to connect the two largest cities in Vietnam while Vietjet also uses their Airbus 330 to operate some daily flights. If you’re flying with Vietnam Airlines, hot-meals service are available if the flight depart between 5am and 8am, 11am and 1pm and between 5pm and 7 to 8pm I believe for flights between these two cities. My flight was scheduled at 11am so I expected a full lunch service on-board. However, we experieced 1h delay due to lack of aircrafts and late departure from Ho Chi Minh city. Here is the flight information:

Flight number: VN 211 HAN-SGN
Aircraft: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner / VN-A861, 1st B787 in the fleet

Class: Economy Class

Seat: 15K ( Premium Economy Class)

Flying during Tet Holiday peak, all check-in counters were crowded. Thanks to my membership, I checked in and dropped my bag quickly at the Business-Class counter. Security was smooth, so I visited the Song Hong Premium lounge to nap, as I hadn't slept the night before.

The lounge was crowded with a variety of food, including Western cuisine. I was exhausted, so I just slept and took some photos from the view, which was beautiful and suitable for planespotting.

I took these photos with my iPhone 13 Pro Max without editing, so the photos were not at the highest quality. My flight was delayed for an hour due to an operational issue that caused the plane to arrive late, which was totally understandable. Boarding started at 11:45 am, and the flight was on time. Thanks god, we had a jetbridge gate rather than bus gate.

Boeing 787-9 VN-A861

Here was my seat, 15K, the window seat in the last row of the premium economy cabin. As it is a short domestic flight, no amenities was provided except the headphone.

Look at that amount of space. Generous legroom, plenty of space. Configured in a 2-3-2 layout rather than 2-4-2 on the A350, the seat also provided a wider seat, which is as comfortable as those Business Class seats on the A321. After experiencing the seat, I figured out why the Dreamliners are mainly used for flights to Europe, except for Paris CDG (mainly A359). I bought two cups of milktea too. They were available online and even on board. Passengers could use the cabin crew call button to ask to buy as well. For this 2h flight, a hot meal service was provided ( lunch). There were two options, but I forgot the other one. I went for rice with fish option, which tasted very good and much better than some meals on other International flights.

Lunch

From the tray, fruits and drinks were also available. Even alcohol was available for Economy passengers, which was interesting. The fish tasted really delicious and suited the rice pretty well. Not too salty, but at a high standard for a traditional Vietnamese meal. The fruit was refreshing, and I took a cup of water after the Coke. Tea and coffee were also available, but I decided to reclined and take a nap. The seat was too good and comfortable so when I woke up, we were already approaching SGN.

That was my experience on board the most popular route in Vietnam. Fantastic experience with a friendly crew, so I had nothing to worry about. For booking with VNA, please visit their website at https://www.vietnamairlines.com/vn/vi/

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