While no details regarding the costs or delivery schedules were disclosed, VietJet said that this new order with Airbus would ‘support strategic expansion over the next decade.’
VietJet confirmed on Monday that it had placed a new order with European planemaker Airbus for 20 A330neo wide-body jets. This announcement comes as French President Emmanuel Macron is in Hanoi to meet the country’s top representatives. Vietnam has been seeking to forge new trade partnerships and deals to expand its manufacturing and other sectors and prepare for a potential economic crash.
The past six months have been wrought with trade tensions and mounting uncertainties for all countries, and an export-reliant country like Vietnam is no exception. In fact, after China and the European Union (EU), Vietnam is next in the line of fire from US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
VietJet has been in the news for some time now, with the Vietnamese budget carrier announcing that it had signed a $300 million deal with AV AirFinance, a partner of investment fund KKR, to fund its fleet expansion. This new deal brings the total number of jets to 40, as VietJet had previously signed a deal to order 20 A330neo wide-body airliners from Airbus last year, as part of the airline’s quest to expand its long-haul network.
While no details regarding the costs or delivery schedules were disclosed, the company said that this new order would ‘support strategic expansion over the next decade.’ VietJet’s chairwoman Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, who signed this deal with Airbus senior executive Wouter van Wersch, said that this new order will facilitate the airline’s global network expansions.
VietJet plans to increase flight networks across the Asia-Pacific region and is also considering the possibility of long-haul services to Europe. Reuters reported that Wouter van Wersch said in a press release that Airbus is proud to have been chosen as VietJet’s trusted partner for the A330neo wide-body aircraft, and it looks forward to working with the airline service in its quest for global expansion.
Vietnam has signed such a major deal around the same time as Washington has been pressuring the Southeast Asian country to reduce its trade surplus with the US. The Vietnamese trade minister had met senators and the US Commerce Secretary last month, where Hanoi promised to balance out the trade surplus and tried to negate the 46% tariff slab on Vietnamese imports into the US.
In order to reduce the massive trade surplus, it has with Washington and avoid being hit with crippling import duties, VietJet has repeated expressed its willingness to purchase Boeing aircrafts and partner with similar US companies, and, to that effect, signed a similar deal in April with AV AirFinance. This deal was finalised when Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc visited the US to negotiate reciprocal tariffs.
VietJet released a statement saying that the agreement with AirFinance was part of its latest string of collaborations with various US companies worth $4 billion. Although no jets have been delivered nearly a decade later, in 2016, VietJet signed a deal to buy 200 Boeing 737 MAX jets and revised the agreement in 2019 during Trump’s visit to Vietnam.
According to Reuters, aside from purchasing planes, Macron’s visit to Vietnam also resulted in cooperation on nuclear energy, railways, Airbus earth-observation satellites and Sanofi vaccines. However, the deal with Airbus is the most significant for Hanoi, as the European aeroplane manufacturer makes up 86% of Vietnam’s fleet, making it the primary supplier of jets to the country’s aviation sector.
This visit also saw the two countries coming together to sign a deal with Airbus Defence on Earth-observation satellites. While the signing of such deals could be seen as moving away from reliance on Washington, both nations said that deals could ultimately help reduce their respective trade surplus with the US, appeasing Trump and potentially negating an onslaught of tariffs.
