The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines is celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year (1995-2015), a major milestone in its journey to be a prominent airline both regionally and globally.

Vietnam Airline's plane is going to take off at Noi Bai international airport in Ha Noi (Photo: VNA)

Vietnam Airlines has expanded its international partnership network by joining SkyTeam, the world’s second largest global airline alliance, in 2010 and signing code-share agreements with 21 airlines and a French national railway firm as well as special prorate agreements with 92 others by the end of last year.

The airline has served 1.39 million flights for about 160 million passengers, earning around 662 trillion VND (30.35 billion USD) in revenue thus far and paying over 30 trillion VND (1.37 billion USD) in taxes.

It expects to carry 17 million passengers this year, an eight-fold increase from 1995.

The carrier was ranked as a three-star airline by Skytrax—a United Kingdom-based research consultancy firm—in 2014 and event met more than 80 percent of 972 criteria for four-star or above.

Vietnam Airlines welcomed Airbus A350-900 XWB, the newest member of Airbus’s wide-body family, and Boeing 787-9 aircraft on board in early July this year, making it the second airline in the world, after Qatar Airways, to own an Airbus A350-900 XWB and the first in the Pacific Asia to operate the 2 new generation jets at the same time.

(Source: VNA)