Vietnam Airlines flies Ho Chi Minh City to Phuket nonstop — the Bangkok detour is gone
The route
Vietnam Airlines began flying nonstop between Tan Son Nhat in Ho Chi Minh City and Phuket on 2 July 2026, with four return flights a week on Airbus A321s. The first service landed in Phuket with 152 passengers aboard.
The addition lifts the airline's Vietnam–Thailand capacity to 67 flights a week. Phuket joins Amsterdam and Colombo on its list of 2026 additions — and it is the one that changes how a regional trip can be put together.
Why it matters for a two-country trip
Previously, travel between southern Vietnam and Thailand's Andaman coast required a connection through Bangkok or Singapore, extending a short sector into a longer travel day.
A nonstop makes the Mekong Delta and Phuket a realistic two-week itinerary rather than an ambitious one.
It works just as well in reverse. Phuket is a natural first stop for anyone who wants beaches before cities, with Ho Chi Minh City the obvious gateway onward to the Delta, Phu Quoc, and the coast at Da Nang and Hoi An.
The traffic behind it
The route follows sustained growth in traffic between the two countries. More than 259,500 travellers from Thailand visited Vietnam in the first half of 2026, about 10% up on the same period a year earlier.
Thai–Vietnamese travel has been one of the steadier growth stories in a region where other flows have wobbled, and it is being actively courted — the launch was run with the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
Schedule considerations
The route operates four times a week, on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. On a schedule of that frequency, a missed connection can mean a wait of two or three days rather than a few hours.
Travellers connecting from a long-haul arrival may wish to allow an overnight buffer.
One-stop routings via Bangkok remain available on the same city pair and are served more frequently.
Building the trip
The obvious shape is beaches at one end, cities at the other. Phuket and the Phi Phi islands first, then the short hop to Ho Chi Minh City, with Da Nang and Hoi An an hour away by domestic flight.
Reversed, it often prices better on the long-haul legs: into Ho Chi Minh City, north or through the Delta, then finish on the Andaman coast and fly home out of Phuket.
Entry requirements differ between the two countries. Thailand wants the free TDAC filed before you arrive. Vietnam wants an e-visa unless your passport holds an exemption. Neither is hard, both are done before you fly, and neither substitutes for the other.
If you are a PacificAir reader, what to do today
Check the four-times-weekly pattern against your actual dates before you plan around the nonstop.
Price the one-stop Bangkok routings as well — on a thin schedule they can be the more robust choice.
Sort your Vietnamese e-visa well before departure, not at the airport.