Vietjet Air has confirmed the launch of its first-ever direct service between Ho Chi Minh City and Colombo, opening a brand-new air corridor between Vietnam and Sri Lanka with four weekly round-trip flights starting in August 2026. The new route was announced over the weekend during the Sri LankaβVietnam Trade, Investment and Tourism Cooperation Forum, attended by Vietnamese President To Lam and Sri Lankan Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya.
The Ho Chi Minh CityβColombo service represents the Hanoi-listed low-cost carrier's debut on the Sri Lankan market and will give travelers from Colombo direct access to Vietjet's wider Asia-Pacific network. From Vietnam's commercial capital, passengers will be able to connect onward to destinations across Australia, Japan, South Korea, mainland China and other key markets where the carrier has been aggressively expanding capacity over the past two years.
Vietjet operates a fleet of 135 narrowbody and widebody jets, anchored by Airbus A321 family aircraft, and is sitting on a backlog of nearly 600 additional aircraft on order to support its international growth strategy. The Colombo route, alongside other new long-haul-narrowbody markets, plays directly into that strategy of building Ho Chi Minh City into a multi-region connecting hub for South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania traffic flows.
Sri Lankan officials hailed the announcement as a major boost for inbound tourism, particularly for the country's growing share of Asian leisure visitors. Vietnam and Sri Lanka have seen passenger demand grow sharply since visa-on-arrival agreements were relaxed, and the new four-times-weekly service is expected to capture both leisure traffic and a developing trade-investment corridor between Ho Chi Minh City's manufacturing belt and Colombo's logistics hubs.
For Vietjet, the route also extends its Indian Ocean footprint, complementing existing services to India and supporting future expansion deeper into South Asia. The carrier has indicated it will deploy A321-family equipment on the roughly four-hour sector, capitalizing on the type's range and unit economics for medium-haul international leisure markets where premium-heavy widebodies would be uneconomic.
Flight numbers, timings and on-sale dates are expected to be released closer to the August launch window. Sri Lankan tourism authorities said they anticipate Vietjet's entry will pressure existing one-stop carriers to sharpen fares and frequencies, ultimately benefiting both Vietnamese and Sri Lankan travelers as the two markets deepen their bilateral aviation ties through the second half of 2026.
Compiled from publicly available aviation news sources. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. This article is original editorial content; facts have been verified across multiple public sources.
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