Bamboo Airways is set to increase its fleet size to 100 by 2024

Bamboo Airways is set to increase its fleet size to 100 by 2024 after it received permission from the Vietnamese Government. The startup airline currently has 16 aircraft on its books, having commenced operations towards the start of this year.

The story of Bamboo Airways is one of success despite obstacles to overcome. The carrier had initially planned to have aircraft in the skies in October of last year. However, after a chain of regulatory setbacks, operations didn’t commence until Q1 of 2019. While the airline started slow, it has ambitious plans. In fact, Bamboo Airways aims to operate 100 aircraft in five years’ time.

So just why is Bamboo Airways looking to operate with 100 aircraft in just five years’ time? This will be partly due to the growth in Vietnam’s aviation industry. However, this growth is, in turn, a beneficiary of the huge bump in tourism the country has had.

Over the last decade, the Vietnamese aviation industry has grown by a whopping 17.4%. In the same decade, Vietnam’s GDP increased by 225%. As such, Vietnam now has one of the fastest-growing aviation industries in any country in the world.

With such huge growth in its local aviation industry, it’s no surprise that Bamboo Airways wants a bit of the pie. However, in this case, it is the aviation market instead of a pie. With this in mind, the airline wants to launch a number of international routes stretching as far as London.

Bamboo Airways is one of Vietnam’s newest airlines. While launched with one domestic route, the airline now eyes international flights to further afield. According to CH-Aviation, the airline hopes to fly to Japan, South Korea, China, Germany, the Czech Republic, the UK, and the US. In fact, Bamboo has talked about operating US flights as soon as next year. The bizarre thing was that the airline talked about this, it mentioned how it could use an Airbus A380 for this purpose.

Bamboo Airways has originally intended to launch in Q4 of 2018, however, there was a holdup in receiving the required documents from the authorities in Vietnam. The airline had its first flight in mid-January this year from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi.