Vietnam Airlines

✅ Verified Review | Tokyo to Ho CHi Minh City on the B787-900. The seats and food were okay. IFE is really limited. This is also something to be improved. Service wise, the crew was okay. However, one of the crew asked the passenger in the last row near the galley to move to another seat so she can put her bag luggage on the seat. The crew chatted and laughed really loudly in the kitchen and this could be heard in the aisle. One of the crew shouted suddenly out of frustration and a few passengers were shocked. During landing, one of the crew was on her mobile phone and tapping away. Vietnam Airlines is definitely improving but I think the level of professionalism of the crew leaves much to be desired.

✅ Verified Review | Booked a flight from Melbourne to Nha Trang, including a 3 hour stopover in Ho Chi Minh City for my wife and I through VN airlines. They change my flight schedule on 2 occasions shortly after purchasing my ticket, the second flight change reducing my stopover time to only 1 hour, and also including an email from VN Airlines ask me to change to a 5am flight the next morning with an offer to pay for 1 night accommodation in Ho Chi Minh City, which I declined as I have already booked accommodation at my destination (5-star resort at $350/night). I am also very concerned as I am transferring from an international flight to a domestic flight which requires me to clear customs, collect my bags and then check in again. VN Airlines leave my schedule as is and advise that they will have staff on arrival to assist with my transfer. When I arrive VN airlines take almost 1 hour just to unload our luggage - The staff member on the ground who was supposed to assist is glued to her phone texting the entire time. Once we have our bags she leads us to the domestic terminal, tells us we've missed our flight, shrugs our shoulders and then walks off, forcing us to stay 1 night at an old, run-down hotel (couldn't even sleep due to the obscenely loud noises coming from the pipes in the walls) and forfeit the 1st night's accommodation at our destination. I've attempted to contact their customer service line for compensation for weeks now, as well as included all my supporting documentation (emails, boarding passes etc.). Each time I do their response is always words to the effect of "someone will get back to you", and then I never heard back. Completely disgusting.

✅ Verified Review | Sydney to Incheon return via Hanoi. Boeing 787 was pretty well maintained. My family engaged in a conversation with one of the Flight Attendants. Boarding was fairly quick but HAN to SYD had some issues. Staff on SYD-HAN seemed a little boring and smiles were rare. Food was disgusting except for my ICN-HAN flight. My seat was pretty comfortable but the legroom is smaller than expected. No WiFi on the A350 and B787 were a huge disappointment but IFE was pretty great. Compared to their previous product 5 years ago, an immense improvement has been implemented. Around $750AUD for the 4 flights was an amazing price.

✅ Verified Review | Paris CDG to Hanoi with Optiontown upgrade. Having had great experiences flying domestically with Vietnam airlines, and keen to try out the newish A350, we decided to use Vietnam Airlines for an international trip. When we bought our economy class tickets we visited the Optiontown website and paid NZ$259 each (USD160) for the chance to get upgraded to premium economy - and it worked! Standing in the check in queue I had given up hope but made one last check of my emails - and there was the good news. If we hadn't been upgraded our money would have been refunded. The great news was that we could use the priority security clearance queue - and the queue at CDG makes LA look easy. I reckon that it would have taken more than two hours just to clear security. The bad news was that we weren't entitled to use the business class lounge. Sure we had priority boarding - but who wants to sit on a plane any longer than they have to? And my suspicion that the hosties would not be greeting us with a glass of champagne (or even sparkling wine) turned out to be correct. The three things that stood out for me were the low quality of the Premium Economy experience, weird meal times and how dirty and badly maintained the seat was. The flight departed CDG at 2pm and they gave us dinner almost straight away. We then had to wait about nine hours for breakfast. They did offer us a filled roll sometime during the night. The meals were entirely forgettable and certainly no more than economy class standard. They were also very, very stingy with the drinks. The armrests of both our seats had accumulated dirt build-up - if you scraped it with your fingernail the layers of filth would come away (see photo). I have sat in similar premium economy seats so I know how the footrest works - or rather doesn't in this case. I noticed other people were having problems too. On the upside the seats had adjustable neckrests. Would I fly Vietnam Airlines again? Domestic flights absolutely - international is only a maybe.

✅ Verified Review | Travelled HUI-SGN on 1st July and back SGN-HUI 1 September 2017. A321. Everything went smoothly. It took less than 1 minute to check-in from Hue despite having a bit of overweight baggage. In Saigon maybe 10 minutes queue as I have no elite privileges. Departed on time and arrived before time, VN are virtually always punctual. Onboard, comedy entertainment showed on ceiling screens are a nuisance to me. I brought instant coffee sachets with me and was then given hot coffee twice (they provide hot water and paper mugs upon request). The flight was completely full, but everything was well organised. Business class section is now reduced to only 8 seats in 2 rows. They use a airbridge gate ("apron") in SGN, so disembarking and embarking goes quickly. Even then, luggage came out on the belt quickly after cabin doors were opened. In HUI they use bussgate which is a joke and waste of time and resources as the aircraft is always parked only 200 meters away from the Terminal building. A new innovation on their homepage is that they now display total fares from the start of booking, which is very transparent. Other airlines should follow, not at least the two LCC’s operating here in Vietnam where initial ticket fares of "0 VND" often ends up being more costly than those sold by Vietnam Airlines which is the only legacy carrier operating domestically. Ticket bought 2 months prior to first departure, altogether 85 USD for a return ticket with handluggage and 20+ kg luggage included. Miles credited Lotus FFP, though discounted tickets do not give much credit mileage.

✅ Verified Review | I have travelled with Vietnam Airlines multiple times (domestic and international flights), and can see a big improvement during the past 10 years, regarding the quality of the aircraft and the cabin staff service. There is room for the improvement regarding quality of service of the cabin crew. They could: Pay more attention when distributing the headsets, some customers didn't receive and had to ask multiple times (flight VN10 on 31 July 2017: Paris-HCM). Noodle soup: ask customers if they would like to have some (it should be systematic), because it is a favorite meal. Change the uniform multiple times during the flight (like in Asiana or Korean Air), it gives a real positive the image of a company. Call light: when the call light is on, the cabin crew should come and ask systematically.

✅ Verified Review | Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, and disappointed for me due to following reasons. The airplane was an older model compared with other A321 jets of Vietnam Airlines fleet. The flight attendants had trouble with entertainment system so that they tried to close and open many times. Moreover, the food trolley had a problem in wheel which takes more time for the flight attendant to provide food for customers. In the past, I used to flight on this route which was usually operated by the good airplanes. Thus, this time was the worst flight in this route for me. I hope Vietnam Airlines could improve the quality not only for international routes but also domestic routes in near future.

✅ Verified Review | Vietnam Airlines from Ho Chi Minh City to Aberdeen via Paris. Definitely the worst Premium Economy cabin/seat I have ever flown in/on. The only difference between economy and premium is you get a pre-flight juice and steel cutlery - the menu is the same as economy and there was no written menu supplied - the seats are 3-3-3 and the leg room is a few centimetres more than economy. No noise reducing headsets. Overall a very disappointing experience compared to Qantas or Air New Zealand, even BA do a better premium economy! Not worth the extra payment.

✅ Verified Review | The flight between Ho Chi Minh City and Phu Quoc island takes around 40 minutes so that they do not serve food on the flight. Every customer was provided with a small bottle of water and a piece of wet tissue. Moreover, there was no entertainment during the flight. Fortunately, I was seated near the windows and could see the sights below. The flight went through Mekong delta which consists of the long rivers and the large rice fields.

✅ Verified Review | Tokyo Narita to Ho Chi Minh City. The delayed time was around 30 minutes. This flight was operated by a narrow body jet (A321). Hence, the width of seat is somehow narrow for me. Moreover, it takes a large amount of time for boarding since the flight attendants did not work well to reduce the boarding time. There are only Western style and Japanese style food for choosing. However, the beverages are various with both soft drink and alcohol beverages. For inflight entertainment, there was no inflight entertainment which was only appropriate for sleeping.