Hanoi-based VietJet Air will start offering two direct flights between Vietnam and New Delhi by December to take advantage of the growing demand for travel between the cities.

The budget airline said it will start offering return flights four times a week from Ho Chi Minh City to New Delhi from December 6 and three weekly flights from Hanoi to New Delhi starting December 7.

The Ho Chi Minh-New Delhi route will operate every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, while the Hanoi-New Delhi service will be on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

"Through the new direct flights from Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to New Delhi, the flight time of about five hours will help promote the tourism economy and trade development opportunities of the two places and become an indispensable part of local tourism development," the airline said in a statement.

The flight departs from Ho Chi Minh City at 7 p.m. local time and arrives in New Delhi at 10:50 p.m. the same day local time. The flight will return at 11:50 p.m. and arrive at 6:10 a.m. the next day, also local times.

CAPA earlier said the Vietnam-India market has been growing rapidly with traffic tripled over the past five years and was up 30% in 2017, driven by a 30% increase in Indian visitor numbers to Vietnam.

In particular, the Hanoi-New Delhi route was the third-largest Vietnam-India city pair, accounting for 12% of Vietnam-India bookings in 2018.

The industry-consultancy firm noted that the Ho Chi Minh-New Delhi flight will be VietJet's longest route.