Northwest Airlines San Francisco – Vietnam flight launched

The United States-based Northwest Airlines has received the license to fly to Vietnam. Northwest Airlines is a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, the world’s largest airline.

Northwest Airlines, based in Eagan, Minnesota, US, becomes the second US-based carrier, after United Airlines, to fly  to Vietnam, the website straitstimes.com quoted a report posted on the Vietnamese government’s website as saying.

In 2004, United Airlines, a subsidiary of UAL Corporation and headquartered in Chicago, the United States, had became the first American commercial airline to fly to Vietnam after the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

The licence given to Northwest Airlines – which comes into effect in June 2009 – will allow Northwest Airlines to fly passengers between Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and San Francisco in the United States with a transit stop in Tokyo, Japan, according to the Vietnamese government’s website.

On the Ho Chi Minh City-San Francisco route, Northwest Airlines will use a Boeing 757 aircraft.

The report in the website straitstimes.com said that Vietnam Airlines, the national airline of Vietnam, has expressed its desire to operate services to the United States but had put of the plan many times.

According to data available in the United States, after the Vietnam War came to an end in 1975, a large number of Vietnamese people had fled the communist nation for the United States. It is estimated that, at present, over 1.3 million Vietnamese people live in the United States.

Vietnam has a population of 86 million people.

Meanwhile, reports in the US say that Vietnam Airlines is planning to open its representative office in the United States in 2010, three years behind schedule.

In 2008, the United States had granted Vietnam over US $1 million in order to improve security and safety procedures to meet the standards set by the US.

Even while the Vietnamese government has been encouraging the Vietnamese people living in the United States to return to Vietnam, many investors in the United States are reportedly seeking business opportunities in Vietnam.