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VietJetAir to launch new Prague - Almaty - Hanoi route
Prague Airport announced today in a press release the official launch of a new long-haul route to Vietnam. From October 2026, the low-cost airline VietJetAir will connect Prague with the capital Hanoi.
A stopover in Kazakhstan
Although the route will be operated by a standard Airbus A330-300 long-haul aircraft, it will not fly directly from Prague to Hanoi, but will make one stopover at Almaty Airport (ALA) in Kazakhstan en route.
VietJetAir has also acquired the rights to sell tickets between Prague and Almaty, so you can use this route not only to travel to Vietnam but also to Kazakhstan.
If you fly all the way to Vietnam, you won't change planes in Almaty: you continue on the same flight to Hanoi.
Flight schedule
The PRG-ALA-HAJ route will start operating on 10 October 2026 with a frequency of 2 flights per week on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
- Prague -> Almaty: departure 20:55, arrival 6:40 (flight time 6 hours 45 minutes)
- Almaty -> Hanoi: departure 8:10, arrival 16:20 (flight time 6 hours 10 minutes)
In total, the journey from Prague to Vietnam will take 14 hours 25 minutes.
The return flight will take the following times:
- Hanoi -> Almaty: departure 8:25, arrival 12:50 (flight time 6 hours 25 minutes)
- Almaty -> Prague: departure 14:20, arrival 18:55 (flight time 7 hours 35 minutes)
The return journey is longer due to the prevailing wind flow and will take 15 hours 30 minutes.
Ticket prices
You won't find prices or times on vietjetair.com yet, but they are already available on the mobile app.
The prices were just uploaded a while ago and will obviously change, as the current pricing doesn't make any sense.
Currently, a return ticket from Prague to Hanoi can be bought for 3 100 eur and from Prague to Almaty for about 2 500 eur.
Update: tickets for all dates are now available for 654 eur in lowest class without service and checked baggage. We will follow up on other events.
So don't forget to set up our Ticket Watcher.
Any questions left?
If you have any questions or comments about the article...
2 comments
Kryštof _1
Translated from cestee.cz
Does anyone know the reason for the stopover in Almaty? Is it because of closed airspace in the Middle East or is VietJetAir wanting to connect Kazakhstan with Vietnam on purpose?
I think the Airbus A330-300 would still make it non-stop. I wonder if when they get the A330-900 this year, it could be even more cool in terms of range.
Kryštof Hájek
Translated from cestee.cz
For the 330-300, it's probably past or at the limit of range. When CSA still flew to Seoul, it was the longest scheduled route in the world for the A333.
And Hanoi is still 600 miles away.
I searched for the tickets yesterday and they have nothing. I mean here https://www.vietjetair.com/
It doesn't seem to me that there's a stopover because of the range, after all it's almost 12000km. And to HAN it will be around 9000 +-?
They have tickets on the mobile app, today they've already launched introductory prices for 15 900 CZK approx / return.
According to GCM it's 5,180 miles, but realistically due to various restrictions (Middle East, heavily "circuitous" routes through China, etc.) it's going to be a lot more, and that might be getting to the limit of the range.
See those flights to Phu Quoc (admittedly, that's a bit further). Those A333s (only on the return trip) also didn't give without refueling at SHJ, later TBS.
I was looking at how it flies from MXP and it comes out to 9000km. But the question is what is the real range of their A330, I have no idea how many fuel tanks they have. Anyway, I'm not going there anyway and they won't put me on a direct to CRK :)
Oh, I searched the web, crawled back and forth and nothing.