Vietravel Airlines

Is Vietravel Airlines safe?

On the record so far, yes. Vietravel Airlines has flown since January 2021 without an accident, and we found no serious incident, fine or grounding. We score it 78. The number comes with a caution we do not attach to bigger airlines: the record is under six years long, built on one to five jets, and kept by a regulator that publishes little. Vietravel Airlines is also not on IATA's 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 (we searched it on 28 October 2026), so it lacks the safety audit that Vietjet and Vietnam Airlines both hold.

A short record is not a long one

Vietravel received its air transport licence in late 2020, took its first Airbus A321 in December 2020 and started scheduled flights on 1 January 2021, in the middle of the pandemic. For most of its life it has flown a handful of jets, mostly on domestic routes.

The Aviation Safety Network database has no Vietravel Airlines accident, and AeroInside, which collects incident reports, has no page for it. Both facts are good news, but they are weak evidence. A serious event is rare at any airline, so a small one can go years without one even where standards are only average. We follow our rule for young airlines with a clean record: the accident factor is 88, not higher, and the shortness of the record shows in the low confidence rating.

The incident factor needs the same care. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) publishes few occurrence reports, and Vietnamese news covers incidents at Vietjet and Vietnam Airlines far more than at small airlines. With nothing reported, we score incidents at 68, the middle of the range for Vietnamese airlines, not at the level of an airline proven clean.

Who runs Vietravel Airlines now?

The airline was founded by Vietravel, a Vietnamese tour company. At the end of 2024 it joined the T&T Group, a private conglomerate (ch-aviation). In April 2026 Viet Nam News reported that the airline was being restructured with support from a strategic shareholder and was finishing a new name and visual identity. If you see a new brand on a VU flight, it is the same certificate and the same crews.

Its plans are ambitious for an airline this size. In September 2026, at the Élysée Palace during a state visit, Vietravel signed a letter of intent for 20 A220s and 30 A321s, including A321neos and A321XLRs, with deliveries from 2029. Airbus called it a commitment and said it looked forward to finalising the contracts, so it is not yet a firm order.

What does Vietravel Airlines fly?

Today, A321s. The CAAV counted five A321s registered to Vietravel Airlines on 15 July 2026, while ch-aviation lists one A320 and four A321s. A new A321, VN-A138, arrived in April 2026 as the first of nine aircraft the airline planned to add within six months, and a 230-seat A321 entered service in June. The airline said seven more aircraft would join in the second half of 2026.

All of these are A320ceo-family jets with 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 controls, a type with a strong record worldwide. They are not the newer neo generation, and Vietravel does not publish their ages, which is why the fleet scores 70 rather than the 80 of Vietjet's younger, neo-heavy fleet. Fast growth from five to a dozen jets in a year is the thing to watch: it stretches pilot experience, training and maintenance at a small airline.

Where it flies

The airline's base is Hue Phu Bai in central Vietnam. It connects Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with regional airports such as Buon Ma Thuot and Cam Ranh, and flies to Bangkok and Shenzhen, with charters such as Hanoi to Lanzhou in China. Central Vietnam takes the brunt of the typhoon season from about August to November, and regional runways are shorter and less equipped than the two big hubs.

How to fly Vietravel Airlines safely

• Have a backup plan. A five-jet airline has no spare aircraft. One technical problem can cancel a day's flights on a route, so on a tight connection, leave a buffer or pick a larger airline.
• Watch typhoon forecasts in central Vietnam in the autumn. Hue, Da Nang and the coast north of them are where storms land most often.
• Keep your seat belt fastened when seated. Convective weather over Vietnam brings turbulence in the wet season, and belted passengers are rarely hurt.

How we scored it

The clean accident record (88) carries the score, but it is short. 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. Compare Vietjet at 80 and Bamboo Airways at 74.