Bamboo Airways plans to lease and operate 787-9 Dreamliner in October 2019

Report by : Gan Yung Chyan
                  / KUCINTA SETIA

According to Bamboo Airways, its first wide-body aircraft on order from Boeing is expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2020. Therefore, in order to serve its immediate flight activities, Bamboo Airways is planning to lease 787-9 aircraft from one of its partners and operate its first leased Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft in October 2019.

Bamboo Airways also emphasized that it has no intention of putting into operation Airbus A330 wide-body aircraft, opposed to the rumours from the local press and social media. In the medium term, it will focus on expanding and modernizing its fleet by increasing the number of wide-body Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and narrow-body Airbus A321 aircraft. Its fleet development plan of expanding to at least 30 aircraft with the above-mentioned models has been officially approved by the Vietnam Government.

Bamboo Airways’ representative said that by the first quarter of 2020, the airline’s fleet will reach 30 aircraft and is expected to grow to 100 by 2024. Currently, its fleet comprises of 1 A319-100, 5 A320-200 (three leased from Freebird Airlines) and 4 A321neo aircraft.

Bamboo Airways operates 26 domestic scheduled routes and five international charter routes to Macau, Ibaraki, Incheon, Taoyuan and Tainan, conducting more than 10,000 absolute flights and maintaining the on-time performance rate of 93.8 per cent, the highest in the aviation industry of Vietnam for the first 6 months of 2019.