Thai Vietjet Air

Is Thai Vietjet safe?

On its record, yes. Thai Vietjet Air has flown since early 2015 without a fatal accident or the loss of an aircraft, and the only events that reached Thailand's accident investigators were two smoke warnings, both ending in a normal landing. We score it 79. Two things hold the number back and lower our confidence: Thai Vietjet 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), and the public record on it is thinner than for most Thai airlines.

Thai Vietjet or Vietjet?

The names cause confusion. Thai Vietjet Air (VZ) is a Thai company that holds its own operating certificate from the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT). Its crews, maintenance approvals and regulator are Thai. Vietjet (VJ), the much larger Vietnamese airline, is a different certificate under a different regulator; its record is on the Vietjet page.

Both sell tickets on the same website, and the Thai airline now markets itself as Vietjet Thailand. The flight number tells you which airline flies you: VZ is the Thai company, VJ the Vietnamese one. In the air, Thai Vietjet's flights use their own call sign, THAIVIET JET.

What has gone wrong?

Very little that is public. The Aviation Safety Network database, the usual first check for accidents, has no records at all for the Vietjet airlines, so we built the record from the investigation notices that France's BEA publishes for Airbus aircraft and from news reports.

• Bangkok, 9 April 2022. The crew of an A320 (HS-VKC) bound for Hat Yai noticed avionics smoke while climbing through about 4,000 feet and returned to Suvarnabhumi. Thailand's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) classed it as a serious incident.
• Chiang Mai, 16 October 2025. On descent from Bangkok, smoke was detected in the aft cargo hold of an A320 (HS-VKN). The crew fired the extinguisher, declared an emergency and landed safely. The aircraft had minor damage; no one was hurt.

A smaller slip came in January 2024, when an A320 that had just landed at Fukuoka in poor visibility took a different taxiway from the one the tower gave and stopped in an engine-test area; it was towed to the gate and no one was hurt (The Thaiger, citing NHK).

Neither smoke report is final, so the causes are not yet known. Both look like the kind of event that crews train for and handled well. We score incidents at 66, in line with Nok Air, because a short list in a country that publishes few reports is not proof of a clean record.

The 2017 suspension

In September 2017 the Thai government stopped 12 airlines, Thai Vietjet among them, from flying international routes until they held new operating certificates. This followed ICAO's 2015 finding of a significant safety concern about Thailand's regulator, which led to a new regulator and the re-certification of every Thai airline. The CAAT's director general said at the time that the airlines had not failed the assessment; it simply was not finished. The suspension was a step in fixing the regulator, not a finding against the airline, so we do not count it as a penalty.

Thailand has come a long way since. The FAA restored Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary in April 2025, and in a September 2026 paper to an ICAO regional conference, Thailand reported an effective implementationICAO USOAPICAO's audit of how well each country's aviation regulator oversees safety. The result is an "effective implementation" percentage.More in the glossary score of 88.03% in its 2025 ICAO audit, up from 61.60% before it. No Thai airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary.

What planes does Thai Vietjet fly?

A fleet in transition. For its first decade Thai Vietjet flew only Airbus A320s and A321s of the older ceo generation. In November 2025 the first Boeing 737-8 arrived from Seattle, and by May 2026 Vietjet said the tenth was due. Vietjet gave a fleet of 22 in May 2026; ch-aviation counted 34 aircraft in October 2026, a figure that may include leased-in jets. Vietjet aims for 50 737-8s in Thailand, with the Airbuses phased out.

The 737-8 is the newest version of the 737, with new engines and avionics, though unlike the Airbuses it is not 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. Flight tracking also shows older 737-800s on some Thai Vietjet routes in 2026; we could not confirm whether these are flown by Thai Vietjet's crews or leased with another airline's crew.

Where it flies

The hub is Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, with domestic routes to Chiang Mai, Phuket, Udon Thani, Hat Yai, Nakhon Si Thammarat and other provincial airports. International flights go to Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, India and China, and some aircraft fly between Taipei and Japan. Thailand's wet season, from about May to October, brings heavy afternoon thunderstorms, and provincial airports have fewer approach aids than Bangkok.

How to fly Thai Vietjet safely

• Read the flight number. VZ is Thai Vietjet, VJ the Vietnamese airline. If the regulator matters to you, check before you book.
• If you smell smoke on board, tell a flight attendant at once. Both of Thai Vietjet's reported events were smoke warnings, and crews want to know early.
• In the wet season, keep your seat belt fastened whenever you are seated, as storms over Thailand bring sudden turbulence.

How we scored it

The accident record (89) carries the score: more than eleven years without an accident. The fleet (76) is getting younger as 737-8s replace the Airbuses. 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 (66) by the two smoke events and thin Thai reporting. Compare Thai Lion Air at 78 and Nok Air at 78.