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DALLAS - Vietnamese carrier Bamboo Airways (QH) has taken delivery of a brand-new Airbus A321neo ACF (Airbus Cabin Flex), expanding the airline's fleet size to 30.
The aircraft departed the Airbus factory in Hamburg and landed at Noi Bai International Airport (HAN) in Hanoi. The A321neo is the longest-fuselage and newest aircraft in the narrow-body, single-aisle A320 family. The "Cabin Flex" increases the jet's maximum certified capacity to 244 seats without eliminating Airbus' modern standard of seats with a width of at least 18 inches.
The cabin's seat configuration was also reduced to 223 seats, consisting of eight business-class seats and 215 economy seats, to grant passengers an improved flying experience—the cabin's interior, on the other hand, was designed to fit QH's brand identity.
The new aircraft was designed to aid in decarbonizing air transport with two LEAP-1A32 engines from CFM International. the LEAP-1A engine Allows QH to enhance performance in terms of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions (15% lower), NOx emissions (up to 50% lower), and noise reduction.
Bamboo's Outlook
Nguyen Ngoc Trong, Chairman of Bamboo Airways’ Board of Directors, expressed, "Expanding the fleet scale is among our priority targets to serve a vigorously expanding international flight network to countries in Europe, Australia, Northeast Asia, and the US. At the same time, this contributes to improving our service quality, meeting market demands, and boosting Bamboo Airways’ competitiveness because the global aviation industry is strongly recovering from the epidemic.”
Bamboo operates flights to 21 of 22 airports in Vietnam and connects passengers to key destinations in Europe, Asia, and Australia.
The addition of the new aircraft officially makes QH the airline that operates the maximum fleet capacity approved by the government. The airline's fleet consists of three Boeing 787-9s, 22 narrow-body aircraft from Airbus, and five Embraer E190s.
Since the start of 2022, the airline maintained an average occupancy rate of 90% (during peak periods) for both the domestic and international networks. If these conditions should prolong, QH aims to increase the fleet size to 42 by 2023 and then 100 by 2030. Impressively, the airline has maintained the absolute safety and the highest 0n-time performance rates in Vietnam's aviation sector since 2019.
Bamboo has its eyes set on making Vietnam one of the largest aviation gateways in Asia by developing long-haul non-stop international routes connecting major continental gateway airports.
Featured image: Airbus
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