No Indian Airline Had Ever Flown Nonstop to Hanoi

Akasa Air operated its first Mumbai-Hanoi service on 4 September, becoming the first Indian airline to fly nonstop between India and the Vietnamese capital. Flight QP625 leaves Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport at 05:35 and reaches Noi Bai International Airport at 12:00 local time, a block of roughly five hours on a Boeing 737 MAX 8. The route runs four times a week, on Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Hanoi becomes Akasa’s seventh international destination and its second in Southeast Asia after Phuket, which is a small network by any measure but a fast one for an airline that first flew in August 2022.

India-Vietnam air links have grown steadily since 2022, but almost entirely through Vietnamese carriers and one-stop routings via Bangkok, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. Ho Chi Minh City has had the better connectivity of the two Vietnamese hubs; Hanoi has been reachable but rarely convenient. What Akasa is testing is whether a narrowbody can profitably hold a five-hour international sector out of Mumbai on leisure demand alone, without the connecting bank a full-service carrier would build behind it. The 737 MAX 8 makes the economics plausible in a way a widebody never would.

The timing is not accidental. Vietnam has been one of the fastest-growing outbound destinations for Indian travellers for three years, driven by visa access that is materially easier than most of the alternatives, a favourable exchange rate and a wedding-and-group-travel market that has adopted Da Nang and Ha Long Bay with enthusiasm. Northern Vietnam in particular has been underserved relative to that demand. A morning departure landing at midday gives passengers a usable first day, which is the sort of detail that decides whether a leisure route fills at the fare the airline needs.

The strategic read for Akasa is that it is building an international network out of the second-tier long-thin markets that IndiGo and Air India have not prioritised. That is a defensible position while it lasts, and a fragile one once a larger carrier decides the route is worth having. Four flights a week is a sensible hedge – enough to establish the market, not so much that withdrawal would be embarrassing. For travellers the practical gain is simple and immediate: the trip to Hanoi is now five hours and one boarding pass rather than nine hours and two.

Sources: Network Thoughts, VietnamPlus