Sun PhuQuoc Airways

Is Sun PhuQuoc Airways safe?

So far, yes, but there is not much to judge it by. Sun PhuQuoc Airways has flown passengers since November 2025 without an accident, and we found no serious incident, fine or grounding. We score it 78 with low confidence. The airline is less than a year old, it is growing faster than any other Vietnamese airline, and it is not on IATA's registry of airlines that passed the IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary safety audit (we searched it on 28 October 2026).

A year-old airline

Sun Group, a Vietnamese developer of resorts and theme parks, set up the airline in 2025. Its first jet, a new Airbus A321neo built in Hamburg, landed at Phu Quoc in August 2025, ticket sales opened in October, and scheduled flights between Phu Quoc, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City began on 1 November 2025. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) cleared it for international flights on 25 November 2025, and its first international route, to Taipei, opened at the end of March 2026, followed by Seoul in April.

A clean first year is good news but weak evidence. Serious events are rare at any airline, so even an average one can go years without one. We give the accident factor 88, the value we use for other young airlines with clean records such as Vietravel Airlines, and put the short record into the low confidence label instead.

How fast is it growing?

Very fast. Vietnam's regulator counted 14 Sun PhuQuoc aircraft on 15 July 2026, 11 A321s and three A320s. The airline had 11 jets in late June and said it would have 26 by the end of August. When its first widebody arrived in September, it had about 20 narrowbodies, almost all A321s, and it plans 33 aircraft by the end of 2026, 60 by the end of 2027 and 100 by 2030.

Growth like this is the thing to watch. Every new aircraft needs several new crews and engineers, and a young airline adding several jets a month has to find, train and supervise them while it builds its own procedures. That does not make the airline unsafe, and most fast-growing airlines manage it. It does mean the next two years will tell much more than the first one, and we will look again in 2027.

What does Sun PhuQuoc Airways fly?

The narrowbody fleet is A321s: new A321neos with LEAP engines, two long-range A321LRs and some older A321ceos, plus a few A320s. The A320 family is fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary and has a strong safety record. The airline does not publish an average age.

The widebodies are second-hand. Sun PhuQuoc is taking eight Airbus A330-200s that American Airlines retired and stored at the start of the pandemic in 2020; they are about 12 to 13 years old, roughly half of it spent in storage. The first arrived at Phu Quoc on 22 September 2026, with the rest due by April 2027. Returning stored aircraft to service needs heavy maintenance checks, which is one reason the fleet scores 74 rather than the 80 of Vietjet's neo-heavy fleet. In February 2026 the airline also signed a commitment for up to 40 Boeing 787-9s, not yet a firm order.

Where it flies

Phu Quoc, an island off southern Vietnam, is the main hub, with flights to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Haiphong, Nha Trang and Van Don, the airline's base in the north-east. Abroad it flies to Seoul, Taipei and Hong Kong among other Asian cities, and as far as Kathmandu, whose airport sits in a mountain valley and is one of the harder approaches in Asia.

Southern Vietnam's monsoon, from about May to November, brings heavy afternoon storms to Phu Quoc, and typhoons hit the centre and north of the country from about August to November.

How to fly Sun PhuQuoc Airways safely

• Leave a buffer for connections. A young airline growing this fast has little slack, and a late aircraft can ripple through the day.
• Keep your seat belt fastened when seated, especially on afternoon flights in the wet season, when storms over the Gulf of Thailand bring turbulence.
• Expect a mix of aircraft. A booking on a long route may be flown by an A321LR or one of the returning A330s; both are proven types, and the seat map shows which one you have.

How we scored it

The clean accident record (88) carries the score, but it covers less than a year. Oversight (72) is held back because the airline is not on the IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary registry, and incidents (68) by Vietnam's thin reporting and the short record. Compare Vietjet at 80 and Vietravel Airlines at 78.