Jetstar launches Macau – Saigon route

Jetstar Pacific Airlines launched its first direct flight service from Macau to the largest Vietnamese city yesterday morning at the Macau International Airport.
This new flight service will be offered twice weekly and adds to the airline’s existing routes to Danang and Haiphong.
During the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new route’s opening, the Consul General of Vietnam to Macau and Hong Kong, Hoang Chi Trung, said that the link to Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, commonly known as Saigon, serves to “strengthen the relationship between the MSAR and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”
Mr Nguyen Tuan Anh, chief commercial officer of Jetstar Pacific Airlines, highlighted in his speech that the company now runs “18 flights per week between Vietnam and Macau,” and adding: “Business, tourism and cultural exchange between Vietnam and Macau are the goals we are seeking to achieve through this new route.”
This is the first time that Jetstar Pacific Airlines has launched a route between the MSAR and Vietnam since the suspension of the route to Hanoi, the country’s capital, which had only been in operation for just over four months, as reported by the Times in August 2014.
The Hanoi route was suspended after violence escalated in Vietnam over a disputed oil drilling area that was claimed by both Vietnamese and Chinese authorities. In August 2014, a Macau International Airport Company Limited representative told the Times that the route was only being suspended temporarily due to concerns for safety and was due to be re-­launched soon. However, there are currently no signs of the route being resumed. RM

macau-okinawa route

Jetsar has advised that a new route will be launched from December this year. The flight will connect Macau to the Japanese island of Okinawa.