(VOVWORLD) -A Xiamen Airlines plane carrying 164 passengers, departing from Xiamen, a city in China's southeastern Fujian province, landed at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport on Tuesday, marking the first direct flight between Xiamen and Hanoi.
 The launch ceremony of Xiamen Airlines' Xiamen-Hanoi flight at Noi Bai International Airport (Photo: VOV)
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Xiamen Airlines is one of the five airlines that have operated routes connecting Hanoi and China, and the second international airline to open a route to Hanoi in 2023 after Starlux Airlines.
The Xiamen-Hanoi route has four return flights every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday with a 2.5 hour flight time.
Before COVID-19, there were 14 airlines operating flights between Vietnam and China, 11 of which were Chinese airlines.
In 2019, passengers carried on flights between the two countries totaled 8 million, 60% of whom (4.6 million passengers) were carried by Vietnamese airlines.
China is Vietnamese airlines' second largest market behind South Korea. Most Chinese passengers to Vietnam are tourists.