HCMC - National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines (VNA) on March 28 took delivery of the 11th new-generation extra wide-body Airbus A350-900 XWB aircraft at Orly Airport, France.

The aircraft, numbered VN-A896, is the 100th of the airline’s fleet and one of 14 A350 jetliners that will be delivered to the airline until 2019.

Vietnam Airlines is the first and only carrier in Vietnam and the second in the world that owns and operates Airbus A350-900 XWB jets. These extra wide-body planes enable the carrier to effectively operate intercontinental services.

Since VNA got the first A350 in July 2015, its A350 fleet has conducted more than 13,000 flights, transporting over 3.3 million passengers between Hanoi, HCMC, Paris (France), Frankfurt (Germany), Haneda (Japan), Seoul (South Korea) and Shanghai (China).

The airline sees Europe as a strategic market, with France being the center. 

VNA has been the only Vietnamese carrier to fly direct between Vietnam and France over the past 15 years. In 1994, it opened its representative office in France and launched an air route between Vietnam and France with a stopover in Dubai, using Boeing 767s.

Ten years later, after adding wide-body Boeing 777-200ERs to its fleet, the carrier launched non-stop service between Vietnam’s two biggest cities – Hanoi and HCMC – and Paris on June 24, 2003, halving flying time to 12 hours.

The number of Vietnam Airlines flyers between France and Vietnam has increased nearly four times to about 3.2 million from 820,000 in 1994-2003 when it was flying from Vietnam to France through Dubai.