Summary
- North America-Ho Chi Minh City passenger numbers rose by 51% last year versus 2019.
- Vancouver’s Ho Chi Minh traffic increased to 104 daily each way from just 37.
- Air Canada has said it may launch Vancouver to Ho Chi Minh City flights.
Despite being very fast-growing, the North America to Ho Chi Minh City market gets little attention. Data supplied to me by an airline network planner and commentator shows that the US and Canada’s top 19 airports to Ho Chi Minh City had over 1.63 million roundtrip passengers in 2023, up by 1.08 million – a staggering 51% – compared to 2019. More than half a million additional passengers were transported, equivalent to 753 extra passengers daily each way (PDEW).
This article does not consider Hanoi or any other Vietnamese city.
Related
Air Canada Sets Sights On 12 More Long-Haul Destinations
This looks at where the carrier has highlighted for future growth.
North America to Vietnam
The market has exploded in the past few years mainly because of family migration and an increasing number of people visiting the Southeast Asian nation for tourism, which I highly recommend.
The two largest airports – Los Angeles and San Francisco – collectively had about half a million passengers last year. Vietnam Airlines serves San Francisco non-stop – no North American carrier flies to Vietnam – while Los Angeles-Ho Chi Minh City is the USA’s largest unserved market. Of course, the airport pairs are long and often pretty low-yielding, hence few non-stop flights.
As the figure shows, 18 of the 19 airports had more passengers in 2023 than in 2019. The sole exception was Los Angeles.
Photo: network planner and industry commentator. Figure: James Pearson.
Robust growth was seen to/from Houston (+70,000 roundtrip passengers), Dallas/Fort Worth (+67,200), Toronto (+66,600), Vancouver (+49,100), and Washington Dulles (+41,900). The Vietnamese diaspora seems attracted to Texas due to lower living costs than in California, with its huge and well-established Vietnamese population.
Air Canada to Vietnam?
In early May 2024, the Canadian flag carrier indicated that Ho Chi Minh City may join its network from its Asia-Pacific hub in Vancouver. There is, as yet, no indication when the route will materialize, but it is one to watch.
At a considerable 6,358 nautical miles (11,776 km), it would be easy to dismiss Vancouver-Ho Chi Minh City. When the distance is added to the type of passengers (mainly tourists, visiting friends and relatives, and diaspora), it could be pretty low-yielding, which is not wanted on such a long service.
Photo: Minh K Tran | Shutterstock
It is not as straightforward as this. After all, Air Canada inaugurated Vancouver-Bangkok – which is marginally longer in distance than Ho Chi Minh City would be – in December 2022. It runs up to five weekly on a northern winter seasonal basis using the Boeing 787-9, with a block time to Thailand of 16h 25m.
It has the experience of this route to build on. More than this, with 76,200 roundtrip passengers last year, Ho Chi Minh City is a larger point-to-point market than Bangkok, which will help with higher yields. It had about 104 passengers daily each way, up from only 37 in 2019.
Image: GCMap
A three-weekly, winter seasonal 787-9-operated Vancouver-Ho Chi Minh City route could be interesting. If well-timed, as I’m sure it would be, it could also easily target other important markets in Canada and the US. For higher yields, it’d be better to focus away from markets such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, which are awash with often relatively low-priced one-stop options from considerable competition.
Given this and assuming a very similar schedule to Bangkok, 10 of the airports in the above figure have non-stop Air Canada flights to/from Vancouver with suitable times: Calgary, Chicago O’Hare, Edmonton, Houston Intercontinental, Montreal, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington Dulles. These airports alone had 640,000 Ho Chi Minh City passengers last year (877 PDEW).
What do you make of it all? Let us know in the comments section.