Review of Vietnam Airlines flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi in Economy

Vietnam Airlines: The quiet achiever — silently ‘reaching further’

Here’s the thing with Vietnam Airlines. With little of the brand recognition — and indeed Westernisation/anglicisation — that regional heavyweights like Singapore/Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airways and even its SkyTeam partner Garuda Indonesia have, it’s had to put in extra effort to make its presence felt on the global stage. And this quiet transformation — best explained by its slogan, Reach Further — has reaped rich rewards, including a Skytrax 4-star rating. With almost zero publicity and very little by way of a brand icon beyond its Golden Lotus — no ‘Smooth as Silk’ (TG) or Singapore Girl here — VN has grown at a remarkable pace indeed, flying to a number of longhaul destinations, including an American one: San Francisco. (It’s the only Southeast Asian airline other than Singapore Airlines and Philippine Airlines to fly to the US.) Yet, because it’s so invisible, much fewer people know about it than should have known otherwise — and that’s why I wanted to make this rapidly growing, but unheralded, airline my last of a whopping 27 flights, across 16 airlines, flown in 2023.

While Garuda was tumbling in free fall after its glory days of the mid-2010s transformed into trillions (of rupiah!) in losses, VN was busy building a fleet of new A350s and 787s to replace the legacy A330-200 and 777-200ER — it never flew either of those aircraft’s more popular -300 variants — that it had been flying until the 2010s. Moreover, it’s steadily been inducting the A321neo and has even placed an order for the 737 MAX — something that’s quite common with East Asian SkyTeam airlines (Korean Air, Xiamen Air and China Airlines), operating the A321neo (but not the A320) and 737 at the same time.* The result: Garuda Indonesia is the only major Southeast Asian flag carrier to never have ordered the A350 or 787 — it does have the A330-900neo, though (though only three of them, which I managed to catch recently) — while Vietnam Airlines has significant numbers of both, including the larger (but shorter-range) 787-10 that I’ll be reviewing in this report.
*CORRECTION: On 7 July 2024, Vietnam Airlines took delivery of VN-A513, the first of three new A320neos, which is its first new A320 since the last older models were retired in 2014.

This, the third SkyTeam airline I’ve flown after Garuda and KLM in the June 2023 Denpasar trip — which I’ve flown again in June 2024 on the former’s A330-900neo (SIN–CGK) and latter’s 787-9 (CGK–KUL) — is easily the least fancied of the major alliance members (hence excluding Philippine Airlines and Royal Brunei Airlines) in Southeast Asia. Yet, while Garuda continues to shrink its fleet and international network — a big proprotion of which is Hajj flights to Saudi Arabia — VN has done very well indeed to go above and beyond regional routes, with the European trifecta of London Heathrow, Paris and Frankfurt, plus Perth in Australia (besides SYD/MEL) and SFO in the US. (And, of course, Indian flights: as mentioned in my previous VietJetAir review, that low-cost carrier has been booming in terms of Indian routes, while VN is a bit more modest with just Delhi and Mumbai service — but it’s now (since May 2024) started A350 service to DEL!)

When you compare the longhaul route networks of VN and Garuda, the ever-growing difference between them — GA barely holding on to twice-weekly Amsterdam service, VN serving LHR/CDG/FRA from both of Vietnam’s major cities — is clear. The momentum definitely favours the golden-lotus airline, as the Indonesian one’s fleet order chart is almost non-existent, but two of their big regional rivals — perpetual money-bleeders Thai Airways and Malaysia Airlines — are starting to expand their fleets after a post-COVID slowdown, the former with a big 787-9 order and the latter with A330-900neos. However, as long as Singapore Airlines exists, no other airline in Southeast Asia will be able to afford a fraction of the luxury, profitability and awards that it has completely cornered for itself… and so a rather humdrum SQ A350 would be my first flight of 2024, from Hanoi back to Changi.

A bunch of earnest professional videos… but does that translate to recognition?

When I booked this flight from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Hanoi in early December 2023, along with the inbound on VietJetAir, the booking page clearly specified an A350 in the seatmap. Now VN has some dedicated flights on the HAN–SGN trunk route which are always operated using widebody aircraft, whether the A350 (-900) or 787 (-9 or -10), and these are pretty much interchangeable. That is, the A350 and 787 have an almost equal chance of turning up for a particular frequency. Having flown the SkyTeam livery on the KLM 777-300ER (PH-BVD) to Denpasar in June, I was half-hoping to get Vietnam Airlines’ A350 with that livery, VN-A897. Turns out the 787-10 registration I got instead simply switched the last two digits!

And when the flight itself rolled around, I thought that the best form of entertainment would be watching a series of videos on how VN has been transforming itself, with a large number of sincere corporate videos — all of them utopian, though, where not a single person isn’t smiling. Sure, those videos wouldn’t in and of themselves persuade people to fly VN, but one has to appreciate the effort it’s taken to go the distance. I mean, SQ enjoys its regional leadership BECAUSE of its luxurious reputation and the fact that TG and MH haven’t come within touching distance; Garuda is even further behind as it continues to maintain a small international destination set. However, for those choosing Vietnam Airlines, they can be assured of a consistent, if understated, product and may well even have a pleasant surprise in store, though it’s nowhere close to knocking off the other blue-and-gold airline in Southeast Asia from its perch. If you need any further proof of how far along it’s come, look no further than SANspotter’s review of the VN A350, one of my favourite trip reviewers thanks to his no-holds-barred, freewheeling language.

As far as my choice of this airline fit into my larger, record-breaking travels for 2023, the year started with an A320neo (AirAsia (Malaysia), from Hyderabad to Kuala Lumpur) and ended with this Vietnam Airlines 787-10, VN-A879. In contrast, 2022, with 15 flights, started with a 787-10 (Singapore Airlines from Chennai, my first report on this website) and ended with an A320neo: Vistara from Bengaluru to Hyderabad, exactly a year before VN. By the way, this was one of only 6 Boeing aircraft I flew in 2023 out of 26* total. Four of them were fifth-freedom flights on KLM, Ethiopian and Gulf Air and the fifth was the ghastly Thai Airways 777-200ER; in fact this trip to Vietnam via Hong Kong wasn’t supposed to have any Boeing aircraft at all. But the fact that it did helped to round out a year that will always define my personal aviation history, one that started in Hyderabad and ended in Hanoi!

*There were 27 flights in 2023 but the same SriLankan A330-200 turned up for both flights on the same day in April, from Chennai to Colombo and onwards to Singapore, hence only 26 registrations.

Once again at the ‘Tegel’ of Southeast Asia

Saturday, 30 December, afternoon. After dining at L’Usine, an impeccably 2020s-designed and -stylised brasserie in Saigon Centre mall, it was time to head from District 1, the beating heart of Ho Chi Minh City, to Tan Son Nhat International Airport. I was overawed at the frenetic bustling energy that this city’s streets buzzed with, and at the same time at a loss for words at just HOW MANY BANKS Vietnam has, with three of the larger ones — VietinBank, VIB and VPBank (Vietnam Prosperity Bank) — shown below.

These were the arrivals at the time, almost all of them VN-registered barring China Southern and Scoot. If the previous VietJetAir flight was anything to go by, my flight, VN216, would be operated by one of the just-arrived aircraft — with a very short turnaround time — and that was indeed the case.

The Gojek, a Suzuki Ertiga/XL7 (a model more associated with India than anywhere else), sped towards the airport, itself located almost within the city centre. I was awed at just how westernised and anglicised some roads and cafés were!

Before long the SGN airport arrived, and I trundled into the lowbrow domestic terminal, with the turquoise-blue taxi below being just a shade lighter than Vietnam Airlines’ livery.

Indeed, the Vietnam Airlines counters had a banner showcasing the widebody A350 and 787 flights on the Hanoi–Ho Chi Minh City trunk route. Three months ago was the only time — my Flightradar24 subscription can only go that far back — that VN216 was operated by the A321, shorn as it was of seatback screens. At least VN’s A321s do have overhead screens, which Indian aircraft never will.

Before long, I got perhaps the biggest boarding pass I’d ever seen, with an ad for another bank (PVcom Bank) celebrating its tenth anniversary, and a big baggage tag to go with it. I dropped my single suitcase and proceeded upstairs to the security screening. While most humdrum and low-ceilinged, the attractive girls on the ads more than made up for it! ;)

Having not seen SGN’s international building, which is presumably more modern-looking, the low-ceilinged corridors of the domestic one definitely gave off Colombo/Malé/Kathmandu/Dhaka vibes. (Of these I’ve visited only CMB, but the other three South Asian airports — outdated all — are no different!)

At one nearby gate was parked a VN A350, and I half-wished that this would be my plane, but… Well, VN is one of those airlines where choosing between the A350 and 787 is splitting hairs, all the more so because the IFE is exactly identical, and the VN A350 (like SQ) doesn’t have a tail camera — no 787 can ever have one — so the experience on the A350-900 is a carbon copy of that on the 787-9/10.

Certainly this wasn’t as impressive a range of retail outlets as the one in Hanoi’s domestic terminal two days ago. Our Indian airports, Mumbai and Bengaluru’s T2s above all, have among the best domestic terminals in the world IMHO — and, among the non-Indian airports I’ve visited, Denpasar’s domestic terminal ranks pretty highly.

Boarding for VN216 had started by now — it was a quarter to four in the afternoon — and it would soon be clear that a 787 Dreamliner would be my final aircraft of 2023, and the only Boeing in this 7-flight trip across India, Hong Kong and Vietnam. But which one: a 787-9 or a 787-10? (SQ, the only other 787-10 operator in Southeast Asia, does not operate any other type of 787.)

As I approached the glass windows on the jetbridge, the registration on the nosewheel soon became clear: VN-A879, one of four 787-10 Dreamliners in the Vietnam Airlines fleet, the others being VN-A872, A873 (with a ’100th aircraft’ sticker) and A874. Three more are pending delivery: VN-A875, A877 and A878, while VN-A876 wasn’t taken up and, scores of test flights later, was converted into a Boeing testbed — as this interesting article from Simple Flying about that mysterious 787 shows!

A couple of misleading registrations here (just kidding): VN-A359 is an A321 and not an A350, and my VN-A879 is not a 787-9 but a 787-10… Well I would be cock-a-hoop were I to get VN-A897 (the SkyTeam A350) instead, but this would be no less of a fitting conclusion to an extraordinary year!

The flight: Boarding and departure

Flight: Vietnam Airlines VN216/HVN216
Date: Saturday, 30 December 2023
Route: Ho Chi Minh City–Tan Son Nhat (VVTS/SGN) to Hanoi Noibai (VVNB/HAN)
Aircraft: VN-A879, Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner
Age: 4 years 4 months at the time (built: 1 August 2019, delivered: 14 August 2019)
Seat: 34K (starboard side, window)
Boarding: 3:45pm Indochina Time (ICT), GMT +7
Departure: 4:15pm ICT
Arrival: 6:00pm ICT
Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes

Notes:
• Final of a record-shattering 27 flights in 2023, and fourth on SkyTeam, after three flights to/from Indonesia (SIN–DPS–CGK–SIN) in June 2023, all operated by aircraft with special stickers — PH-BVD, a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines 777-300ER in SkyTeam livery, followed by two Garuda Indonesia A330-300s, PK-GHC (mask decal) and PK-GPU (bank sticker).
• Third flight on the 787-10 and the first not on Singapore Airlines. Second non-Star Alliance 787 flight, after Gulf Air GF166 (787-9 A9C-FC) from Bangkok to Singapore the previous month. Until then, all 787s were flown only on four Star Alliance airlines: AI, SQ, TG and ET — the last of them on first a 787-8 and then a 787-9 between SIN and KUL.
• Only Boeing flight of 2023 that was neither a fifth-freedom flight (Ethiopian x2, KLM, Gulf Air) nor my arch-nemesis, the Thai Airways 777-200ER! Also, 2023 started with an A320neo (AirAsia) and ended with this 787-10, in contrast to 2022 which started with a 787-10 on SQ and ended with an A320neo on Vistara.

How many magazines and tourism videos would you like to have today?

As with Singapore Airlines, a tray of disposable, low-quality headphones was kept before the entrance as the cool December sun glinted against the glossy metallic blue of the plane. As the cabin started to fill up, I settled into my window seat, 34K — something I typically choose on a 787, where row numbers almost never exceed 50, except on SQ. Much as I love sitting in row numbers in the high sixties — as far back as possible — that’s almost never going to happen on a 787, though this 787-10 was long enough to have Row 55.

Waiting at my seat were not one magazine, but two: the main Heritage magazine, and a secondary Heritage Fashion magazine — both of them thick and glossy. It made Singapore Airlines stick out all the more like a sore thumb, since it was the only one of the five airlines on this trip which didn’t have an inflight magazine. Vistara and Cathay had their eponymous magazines, and even VietJetAir on the previous flight had One2fly — and here was Vietnam Airlines with two!

For that matter both Garuda Indonesia and Malaysia Airlines brought theirs back — Colours and Going Places respectively back, to my pleasure, as I flew recently (June 2024). Yet SQ, Thai Airways, SriLankan Airlines and several Gulf carriers (except Etihad) refuse to do so… (Going Places has the added advantage of being published by Ink Global, which has churned out some of the finest inflight magazine designs over the years, like Etihad’s Atlas — which made a postpandemic comeback, but not by Ink — as well as SQ’s SilverKris and QR’s Oryx, which have not.)

At least VN’s magazines looked okay, if not Ink-designed professional, but the safety card was outdated and honestly very bad. Malaysia Airlines is second to none in this department in the region, and indeed MH’s overall typography and brand (as is usual for Oneworld airlines, except JAL) is head and shoulders above any other ASEAN airline — only Royal Brunei Airlines, a small but surprising delight, comes close — while VN is mostly very mediocre, with a ton of that overused, awful Montserrat font.

All seats were playing a set of tourism videos, covering the length and breadth of the country and also abroad. These were similar to SriLankan’s very nice and authentic tourism videos, which I’d seen on a late-night A321 flight the previous month (November 2023), and better by far than the cheesy, generic Amazing Thailand videos — plenty of beaches and bikinis — that were being played on a rainbow-moodlit-cabinned TG 787-9 a year ago (December 2022).

Given the glare from the windows, this is the best that I could manage, but you can see that Vietnam Airlines had definitely done a thoroughly professional-looking job — and a pretty one at that.

From a domestic-focused video, the attention turned to famous festivals around the world as the cabin crew stowed belongings into the overhead lockers. What I found to be most exciting was the country names: Ấn Độ for India, Đức for Germany, Nga for Russia and the unusually short Ý for Italy!

The more famous countries of the world have native Vietnamese names, including its former coloniser of Pháp (France) — but many others simply copy the name from English, like Myanmar, Malaysia and Singapore.

Next came Christmas and New Year wishes from across Vietnam, from the capital of Hanoi in the north to the largest city of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the south — today’s destination and origin respectively — and all the sleepy villages and picturesque lakes in between.

At length, the videos gave way to the home page of the LotuStar entertainment system, which is not even a patch on KrisWorld (as heavily Montserratised as it is) if you ask me, let alone the pitch-perfect StudioCX on Cathay Pacific — on both the A350 and A321neo versions — with the best typography there is. This looked remarkably old-fashioned, reminiscent of the IFE on Ethiopian Airlines’ 787-9s and A350s (the 787-8s are older still), right down to the outdated Univers font.

Before that, though, a few ads were played simultaneously for everyone: first Vietcombank, one of the major state-owned banks here, alongside VietinBank, BIDV and Agribank; and then a Swiss luxury watchmaker which would be much more at home on KrisWorld: Hublot. Every time you start a movie on KrisWorld, you will be hit by ads for one Helvetic horologist after the other, from Patek Philippe to H. Moser and Cie. to Jaeger-LeCoutre. Somewhat funny, then, that Vietnam Airlines should now do the same!

On the other side, the yellow glint of the evening sun shone against the wing for the penultimate time in 2023. Among the recent non-VN-registered arrivees at Tan Son Nhat were 737 MAX 8 9V-MBM as SQ184 and A320neo 9M-RAP as AK522.

Shortly after that, a most exotic, rich and vibrant safety video was screened, showcasing the breadth and depth of Vietnamese culture and heritage (ha!), and easily one of the best standouts in recent memory. (Note: English audio played with Vietnamese subtitles, and vice-versa — the same as on Cathay Pacific’s A350.)

Usually I fill up my phone storage with all the little details, including tons of pictures of safety videos — but this time around my storage was already too full to take any more pictures than necessary! In lieu of pictures of the video, therefore, below I’ve attached the video itself. Full marks for creativity, authenticity and presentational skills, Vietnam Airlines!

Unfortunately, today would be one of the very last days this professional and pleasing production was screened. Two days later — New Year’s Day — a new video, entitled Flight to the Future, took its place, sacrificing all the traditional folk performances in all their finery for…I don’t know what. When your vast heritage and culture can speak for itself, do you really need to be all AI-powered and technofuturistic? Let’s simply say that I’m not a fan of it at all.

If you thought this was too ‘tech-ified’, it was one-upped only a few days later by SkyTeam partner Korean Air, which launched a safety video with a VIRTUAL person, entitled Rina. Yes, a girl who doesn’t even exist, who’s just a virtual avatar, giving you safety instructions. Outrageous, outlandish, out-there. I’m speechless… Korean Air will do all these pseudo-sci-fi things but refuse to change its 40-year-old livery. I’m just grateful that Vietnam Airlines, for all its futuristic-ness, didn’t go a bridge too far like KE did.

These were the few pictures I could get of the safety video, and I’m grateful I could. All that was left now was to take wing for the final time in 2023 — soaring above the dense urban sprawl of Ho Chi Minh City — and reflect on a year gone by, from Hyderabad to Hanoi, one with pleasant or putrid surprises, cheerful or cold cabins, but above all a whole bunch of memories that I will treasure for life. (Too bad the Dreamliner does not have a winglet…)

Two small snacks, two big magazines

I’ll get into VERY deep detail about the LotuStar IFE — particularly Vietnam Airlines’ corporate videos — in a bit, but shortly after takeoff I glanced at whatever Western movies and shows it had. (No, there’s no question of Bollywood — this isn’t VietJetAir! In terms of VJ’s Indianised advertising, that is, not that it has any IFE…) 😆

As with several airlines, there was a kids-themed section as well, but the selection was more than a bit of a letdown — with the only things from Disney being some audio tracks: (third row, right) ‘Disney/Pixar Greatest’, ‘Everybody Loves Disney’ and (last row, right) ‘The Magic of Disney’.

Within hardly 20 minutes of departure, a pretty stewardess in a yellow gown — almost resembling an Indian kurta — handed out the snacks for the two-hour sector. Now the only thing I could order online when booking the flight was a cup of oolong bubble tea — branded as ‘LotusDeli Skytea’ — which any addict of the famed Taiwanese drink will probably have tasted.

It was time to see how it looked like in action, and the packaging was really pretty indeed! This was served with a cup of water and what I reckon was a pork floss bun, and it certainly made for a better snack than the disappointment that Gulf Air, despite its much more snazzy 787-9, had served me from BKK to SIN the previous month.

As I noted in my caption, she was kind enough to point out that it contained ham, which I’m okay with. Now the mood lighting became as golden as the Golden Lotus, or perhaps her uniform, as the evening skies steadily started dimming — too bad this was a 787 with those pointless electronic dimmers, instead of proper window shades!

Now I decided to have a look at the main Heritage magazine, leaving the Fashion one. I wasn’t expecting to be swept off my feet like Malaysia Airlines’ resurrected Going Places magazine did — this was still very Vietnam-centric rather than global — but by all accounts they did a solid job. While the social media and ads have that goddamn Montserrat, the magazine design is quiet and peaceful. (Full resolution here.)

However, you have to understand that most of the articles were highly Vietnam-centric, focusing much more on little-known places — like the cloud-covered Pu Dao mountain (first row below) — across the length and breadth of the country that were completely unknown to an international audience. Certainly, it was not as global or outwardly professional as the Cathay magazine, which I suppose is to be expected, since it’s not like Vietnam Airlines is all that anglicised anyway compared to CX, EK, MH or SQ.

Heck, even VietJetAir’s One2fly had a more diverse range of articles; but for what it is, if you’re looking for an exploration into lesser-known hidden treasures of Vietnam, this is the glossy for you. (Full resolution here.)

Those articles that did touch upon global destinations, like Interlaken in Switzerland, were rather perfunctory in nature, instead of being ‘lived’ and ‘travelled’ by someone ‘in the know’ — as is the case in Cathay or any Western inflight magazine. All that aside, I turned to the about-us pages, where there was a very nice shot of VN-A897, the alliance-liveried A350. (Full resolution here.)

BE WARNED: Everything beyond this point is just corporate videos and airline information screens. I find it to be fascinating, but if that doesn’t sit well with you, you’re free to skip straight to the end.

Apparently every SkyTeam airline operates the 777-300ER?!

Now I never expected very much from the LotuStar IFE system, not that I really care for IFE beyond the moving map anyway if a given airline isn’t going to have Bollywood. Regardless, I was intrigued by whatever informational/corporate content Vietnam Airlines had to offer — and, mind you, there was plenty.

The passenger to my left was playing a local action-thriller film called 578 Magnum, but since there was a persistent Vietnam Airlines+SkyTeam logo in the corner, I initially thought that he was watching some long advertisement for the airline, before he paused the video for a break!

But it was now my turn to watch all the promotional and corporate videos that Vietnam Airlines had to offer. And, my goodness, there were MANY of them — I was in for a treat! This would be far more entertaining than any movie or show, and would also go to show just how much VN has been reinventing itself — or, to borrow its slogan, ‘Reaching Further’ — despite not being as Westernised or anglicised as CX or SQ.

First up: the SkyTeam alliance’s ‘Skycare and Protect’ video on COVID protocols ensuring safety, health and sanitation… but wait! What was I seeing… EVERY SINGLE AIRLINE HAD A 777-300ER?!?!?! Either I was imagining stuff or the alliance’s renderings were highly unrealistic. Imagine Czech Airlines, with just TWO aircraft, operating a 777-300ER, or for that matter Middle East Airlines of Lebanon…

Only the following SkyTeam members shown in the video below actually operate, or operated, the 777-300ER:
1. Aeroflot Russian Airlines
2. Air France
3. the erstwhile Alitalia*, with its sole example (EI-WLA) now flying for IndiGo (TC-LKD) leased from Turkish Airlines
4. China Airlines
5. China Eastern Airlines (and also former member China Southern Airlines)
6. Garuda Indonesia
7. Kenya Airways (though all three 777-300ERs moved to Turkish as TC-LKA–LKC)
8. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
9. Korean Air
10. Saudia

Moreover, some members operated the 777-200ER in the past before retiring them, but never the -300ER: Delta Air Lines (couldn’t snap it below) — which also operated the 777-200LR, now flying for Air India as VT-AEE–AEI — plus Aeroméxico and Vietnam Airlines itself. Delta’s only Boeing widebody today is the 767, especially the 767-400ER, while AM and VN have the 787.

*Its successor, ITA Airways, is not only all-Airbus but also operates its latest and greatest aircraft: the A220-100 and -300, the A320neo and A321neo, the A330-900neo and the A350-900! However, it will leave SkyTeam in the near future, as it will join the Lufthansa Group and the Star Alliance — months after Star founder Scandinavian Airlines moves to SkyTeam in September 2024.

Regarding the actual COVID safety protocols, all I have to say is this: after three to four years of heavy restrictions, I’m incredibly grateful to be living in a (mostly) mask-free world again.

Also: will Virgin Atlantic ever acknowledge its SkyTeam membership on its aircraft (with the logo on the plane)? Much of the alliance’s physical signage at global airports doesn’t include the British airline. For that matter Air France and KLM are completely de-emphasising and hiding the SkyTeam logo in their brand assets, with KLM following AF in moving the alliance logo to the rear door in the revised livery on its upcoming A321neo.

Coming to Vietnam Airlines itself, there were tons and tons of corporate videos ranging from inflight cabins to cuisine to crew to… well, I was going to watch every one of them as we cruised northward to Hanoi.

Before that, though: a very Wikipedia-style, boring factfile about the airline and its achievements. (Full resolution here.) This was a stark contrast to how European alliance partner KLM, in its about-us screens, proudly emphasised itself as the world’s oldest continuously operating airline, and proclaimed itself as one of the most innovative throughout its existence!

Corporate brand film: ***EVERYONE*** is smiling!

Next up came VN’s own corporate video — Vietnamese audio, English subtitles — highlighting its transformation on the path to becoming Skytrax 4-star-rated. Clearly this was a point of pride for a previously unheralded airline, and the passion and enthusiasm the staff showed in their airline and country was plainly visible for all to see — and it reflected in the passengers’ smiles as well.

People, young and old, enter and are completely floored — so their expressions look like — by the simplicity and convenience of everything, from the check-in to the lounges… with a special emphasis on children.

As the A350 takes off, it’s the children — and one little girl especially — who are the most overjoyed, more so than the business-class passengers!

The all-around beaming-with-joy feeling expends to the ground staff as well, from mechanics to chefs. Obviously this was a highly staged production, where every single employee shows their glorious pride at every step, but it was certainly thoughtful of VN to include the ground staff, who more often than not are sidelined in publicity content.

This was followed by a few statistics and numbers in Vietnamese, without English translations, accompanied by sweeping landscapes of the countryside and cities alike.

As the video drew to a close, the male and female cabin crew stood together — first in the slick corporate office, and then beside a 787-9 — in a collective greeting, before a few more stats and numbers, and its mission and goals (a Google-translated image below), and eventually the airline and alliance logo, and the slogan and website.

I agree with most of the objectives — trusted partner, dedicated professionalism, extensive network, etc. — but Vietnam Airlines has a very, VERY long way to go if it has any hope at all of providing the ‘classy service’ that Garuda Indonesia and Thai Airways can do, and that’s saying nothing of SQ.

FLeet, crew, ground and cuisine insights — with lots of kids

Again, if you find these videos and information screens to be too boring for you, please feel free to skip them.

Next I wanted to check out the profile of Vietnam Airlines’ destination network and fleet, as well as the LotusMiles frequent-flyer programme. The destinations were a bit outdated, since they showed Moscow — suspended since the Russian invasion in early 2022 (even though Aeroflot launched a twice-weekly A350 service to Ho Chi Minh City in February 2024) — but left out San Francisco and Perth. (Full resolution here.)

Next came the partners, both within the SkyTeam alliance and otherwise… and here the errors were outright glaring, as there is no way you can continue to include China Southern Airlines in SkyTeam and also keep ČSA Czech Airlines out of it.* About Virgin Atlantic, I don’t care either way; in a lot of cases, it’s not like the British airline really acknowledges that it’s joined SkyTeam.

And then the fleet, the single most impressive thing about Vietnam Airlines’ strategy of transformation: from the A321** — though for some reason the A321neo wasn’t mentioned here — to the A350 and 787, to the upcoming 737 MAX 8 order, and even the ATR 72 for small airports, this really looks like a future-ready fleet. Which is more than can be said for Garuda Indonesia’s 737-800s, A330-300s and 777-300ERs, plus the three A330-900neos; even though they aren’t actually that old — built no earlier than 2010 — they won’t hold up as well as A350s and 787s can.

*Granted, ČSA will cease to exist as a separate entity at the end of October, and be fully assimilated into its parent company, Smartwings — even though the ČSA brand won’t necessarily go away, but will they still be a part of the alliance? With only TWO aircraft, I doubt whether the 101-year-old airline can stay afloat for longer… I digress.

**After nearly a decade of not operating the A320, Vietnam Airlines took delivery of VN-A513, the first of only three A320neos, in July 2024. Still, this is a contrast with its alliance partners Korean Air and China Airlines, which have steadily built up a large number of A321neos but refrain from flying the A320(neo), and operate the 737 instead. Cathay Pacific also comes to mind, as the A321neo that I’d flown to Hanoi a few days before this flight is its only narrowbody aircraft type, and none of Cathay Dragon’s narrowbodies entered the fleet.

After this I opened a couple more videos, with one being about the economy-class experience, and again this had a big emphasis on kids. Two kids, a girl of around seven and a boy of around five years old, took centrestage when the plane arived.

Funnily enough, the arriving plane shown at first (fourth row, left) was the old, now-retired A330-200 with the old grey-bellied livery, but somehow this morphed into a proper, new A350!

Once onboard, the focus shifted to the cabin crew and their caring treatment of (especially younger) passengers. No wonder then that the classic hospitality themes — give a gift to the child in the aisle seat for him/her to play with — were on show again here.

When the flight landed, it was of course the kids who were most eager to rush to their grandparents, as the fitting endcard of ‘Fly in Happiness’ showed!

Next up was a video on the cabin crew, ’where sincerity counts’ as they called it. The description read as follows: The friendliness, dedication and professionalism of cabin attendants bring good emotions and a unique identity for the brand of a classy airlines [sic].

No, no, Vietnam Airlines. You’re a sincere airline, no doubt — as those cabin crew (and happy passengers) are definitely proof of — but with that egregious spelling mistake, you’re definitely not a classy airline…

Then a video on the ground services, showing the mobile and counter check-in services and the premium lounges. It’s really impressive how Vietnam Airlines went the extra mile to revamp every aspect of its services, all the more so with the not-very-glamorous state of Vietnamese airports compared to Changi, KLIA (only T1), Suvarnabhumi and Soekarno–Hatta (only T3).

The same theme continued with the boarding experience as well, but I must state here that I haven’t yet been to Ho Chi Minh City’s international terminal — only the dump of a domestic terminal that I’ve shown above — and hence cannot relate to the airy, spacious boarding gates shown here. Hanoi’s international boarding gates are pretty good-looking, similar to the below pictures.

Two more videos to finish: one, ‘Flying with Vietnam Airlines’, and another entitled ‘Signature Dish’. The former’s description read: In an ever changing the [sic] world, Vietnam never stops showcasing its beauty. Discover Vietnam’s latest changes with Vietnam Airlines. The world is changing. Are you?

But for the last two short-and-snappy sentences, it will be very hard to believe VN’s aims to globalise itself, not with those grammatical errors…

And finally the ‘Signature Dish’ video, which of course had to show a bowl of pho, the single most recognisable Vietnamese dish there is!

Commercial ads on descent

With 90 minutes done and only 15 left for arrival into Hanoi, the LotuStar system now screened some commercials for everyone, starting with some more banks — as if there weren’t enough banks in this country already…

First the well-known Sacombank with its Apple Pay compatibility — don’t let the outdated logo fool you; the airport ad in the terminal shows how modern it looks — and then some sort of food company (as evidenced by the meat slices) followed by the much smaller Vietbank.

And then ANOTHER bank, among the country’s largest state-owned banks: VietinBank. At this point I was sighing, exhausted with all the banks, but fortunately the next ad was for a paints company. And a very sleek-looking one at that, with the woman’s shapely coat, tying in with coats of paints!

This was followed by another paints company, with the ad themed with colourful kids and parrots. Then something far more useful: a tourist guide by Vietnam Airlines — something that I didn’t know existed — which wrapped up the advertising.

I haven’t shown a lot of plane views from out of the wing, because it mostly looked the same: a bed of white fluffy clouds with the setting sun lighting up the horizon. At this point we were on final approach to Hanoi, less than a kilometre above the ground, and the cabin lights were dimmed for landing, leaving only the golden-yellow mood lighting of the Dreamliner on show.

Just seconds before touchdown, I set the display to the home screen, which — rather unprofessionally in my opinion — made a grab for attention with its ‘enjoy our exclusive collection’ call, something that wasn’t quite justified with such a meagre selection of IFE content on offer. For instance, the HBO Family animated series A Little Curious was released way back in 1999–2000, two decades before this aircraft. But what it couldn’t provide in terms of movies and shows, it more than compensated for with its extensive corporate videos!

At the stroke of six, the 787-10 smoothly touched down at the runway of Hanoi’s Noibai International Airport, the last of 27 times in 2023 that I’d experience that thrilling feeling of jerking and coasting all the way — and, more often than not, I’d been in a window seat. Of course I’d rather this were an A350 instead, but there’s almost no realistic difference between the VN 787 and A350.

The screens showed a lotus — red, not golden! — with dewdrops, with the message Xin cám ơn prominently displayed first, and thank-you messages in various other languages below it.

Unlike three days before, when I’d landed at a similar time on the Cathay Pacific A321neo, there was no Emirates or Qatar in sight. There were, however, a lot of B-registered aircraft: Mainland Chinese (Shenzhen and China Eastern 737-800s), Taiwanese (China Airlines 737-800, Starlux A321neo, EVA A321) and Hongkongese (Hong Kong Airlines A320).

The only other non-VN aircraft were an SQ 737 MAX 8 (9V-MBP, the latest), a Cambodia Angkor Air A320 (XU-353) and an A320 of Turkish charter carrier Freebird (TC-FHL) that was flying for VietJetAir.

Now was the time for me to inform my parents of my final arrival of 2023, back in Hanoi, and also to share a few pictures of Vietnam Airlines’ corporate videos, saying how they were focused on reinventing theselves. Mom said, in Bengali, that the VN air-hostesses had very pretty uniforms, much like the Indian kurti. Can’t disagree with that!

The largely local passengers began their very orderly disembarkation, as I got up and took a good, hard glance at the blue-patterned seat fabrics and the bright red thank-you screens all around. A perfectly comfortable and memorable way to bring 2023 to a thrilling finish, and Ngoc Quynh, the girl in a bright yellow tunic walking past the empty seats, likely thought the same thing!

At the exit of the plane, I bade the cabin crew farewell and wished them a Happy New Year, then proceeded to the jetbridge.

On that jetbridge, which very oddly had circular windows, I took as many pictures as I could, left and right, of the sleek, sexy blue body of the plane before entering the terminal building.

One final baggage claim in 2023

The lengthened Dreamliner stood in the company of A320/1s as I turned inside, where a woman in a blue tunic dragged a sign somewhere. I went down to the domestic baggage belts, and there too I was hit by a barrage of banks — with this one being TPBank, which uses a lovely colour combination driven by violet, my favourite!

After 15 or so minutes — wherein I spent more than a little time charging my completely depleted phone battery, and clearing up a bit of its completely depleted storage — my suitcase arrived and I was ready to step out into the wintry Hanoi night, where people were already starting to meet and celebrate the New Year cheer.

A bit more of the future-forward TPBank ads, with very pretty fonts and colours indeed — easily among my favourites of the dozens of banks in Vietnam (I’m a sucker for anything violet like Thai Airways) — before I wheeled all my luggage to the exit.

The arrivals had become slightly more diverse now, as instead of the A321neo I’d got three days ago, it was now an A330-300 (B-LBH) that had landed from Hong Kong as CX743 — in addition to a Lao Airlines ATR 72 and a private jet with that most ubiquitous of registration prefixes, 9H.

After some tense waiting, and moving all the way down the drop-off driveway with heavy luggage, my Gojek ride — a Toyota Vios, different from the Hyundai that the app showed — turned up and I loaded my luggage into it. In between were all these ads for VietJetAir, Hyundai and other things, and a free shuttle bus to boot.

The car was lit up with neon blue lighting, which already provided a brilliant effect as we drove out of the airport and down into the city, but what was to come was even more spellbinding.

The Nhật Tân Bridge, or Vietnam–Japan Friendship Bridge, lit up in every colour conceivable — no mean feat this, as there were some 16.7 million colours on show, courtesy of Philips’ lighting accomplishments!

Soon, the vast, empty spaces gave way to city lights and buildings, while on my secondary Android phone I played a number of songs from Jawan, the year’s highest-grossing Bollywood blockbuster, which kept my spirits high throughout the last week of 2023. What a path-breaking, epochal year it had been, and what a city Hanoi would be to end it in… I’ll share more in the next instalment, the last of this trip!