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Review: Vietnam Airlines business class from Ho Chi Minh City to London (Part 2)

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This is Part 2 our review of Vietnam Airlines business class from Ho Chi Minh City to London.

Part 1 of our Vietnam Airlines business class review is here.

Sleeping

Whilst the seat is okay to sit in, the lack of decent padding is noticeable when you try and use bed mode. Vietnam Airlines provide some mattress protectors, but this is only for hygienic purposes and does not feature extra padding as you get on some airlines.

That makes the seat rather hard in bed mode – and, coupled with a few gaps in the mechanism, not the most comfortable surface you will ever sleep on!

Vietnam Airlines business class bed

I was pretty tired, however, and did my best to get some decent shut eye. In the end, I think I managed about 7 hours or so which is very good.

Additionally, as a side sleeper, I found I could only really sleep on one side due to my knees. One one side they would fit nicely into a gap in the seat whilst the other way around the seat got in the way.

Vietnam Airlines does not provide pyjamas although I believe they have plans to introduce them. You may want to bring your own.

Breakfast

Breakfast is served about two hours before landing. The choice was between pho, a roast-chicken and tamarind sauce dish or an omelette. Here is the pho:

Vietnam Airlines business class breakfast pho

…. which was much better than in the airport lounge.

Breakfast came with a yoghurt-granola thing which I thought was quite tasty as well as a selection of fruit and a choice of pastries.  I had a chocolate coconut Danish.

IFE on Vietnam Airlines

In flight entertainment is offered via a pop-out screen. It is not available during taxi, take-off or landing.

The interface and media selection was the same as on my outbound, which basically meant a bunch of superhero releases and Disney live action adaptations, as well as some classics. It was about a 50/50 split between English language and Asian films.

Vietnam Airlines business class ife

As someone who does not find superhero releases or Disney money-grabs particularly entertaining there wasn’t a huge amount on offer. I went for Stan & Ollie, which was a lovely little biopic about Laurel & Hardy.

Vietnam Airlines business class headphones

Vietnam Airlines provides headsets, which are of the on-ear variety. You have to put a little foam protector over each side before using, which is a little finicky. They do come with some basic noise cancelling. The headphones are are a little on the cheap side, and as usual I stuck to my own pair!

Conclusion

Vietnam Airlines business class is a good product although some of the seats are starting to show their age, especially when it comes to seat padding. A little investment here would go a long way to delivering a truly competitive product.

Service is good – staffing levels appeared very high, although maybe I was just more conscious of it sitting behind the galley. The food is decent too. As a huge fan of pho it’s nice to see them offer it during the breakfast service!

I wouldn’t hesitate to fly Vietnam Airlines again. Although it does not deliver the same sort of luxury as some carriers such as Qatar Airways or Singapore Airlines, it is a decent product. As the only airline to fly directly between London and Vietnam it also offers 11 hours of uninterrupted travel, which is great for night flights. I came off my flight feeling very fresh and ready to start a new day.

Thank you to the Vietnam Airlines team in London for going above and beyond the call of duty in putting my trip together, including the hotels and even the river cruise.

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Comments (8)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • AG says:
    27 Oct27 October 07:41

    “…which was ,uch better than in the airport lounge.”

  • The Original David says:
    27 Oct27 October 09:32

    That food service looks poor to be honest. Throwing your dessert at you along with the starter worked ok in Club Europe for a 2-3 hour flight, but on long-haul business class it just seems lazy. And those headphones!!

    Unless Vietnam is offering some absolute bargain prices, I’m not in a hurry to try them based on this series.

    • @mkcol says:
      27 Oct27 October 17:42

      Yet I recall American offering just that service for an express meal (even on day flights) – perfect for those who want to eat quickly then maximise work/sleep, so not entirely sure what the problem is.

  • Tim says:
    27 Oct27 October 13:10

    About to fly lhr to Hanoi and return, in J, courtesy of a river cruise deal offering ‘free’ flights. Hopefully my Temazapan tablets will ease the sleep for my tall body

  • DavidB says:
    27 Oct27 October 15:00

    Why do you call this a “direct flight” rather than “non-stop”? In earlier days of commercial flying when planes often had to make interim refueling stops, such flights were called “direct” because you were on the same plane (and flight number) though there might be stops along the way…rather than interim connecting flights. The term “non-stop” would be applied when there were no interim stops…which is the case with this (and most long haul) flight(s).

    I suppose most bloggers and video flight reporters are too young to remember how it used to be and thus apply a term that may be somewhat accurate (direct) vs one that is fully accurate (non-stop).

    • guesswho2000 says:
      27 Oct27 October 22:13

      Not really how it used to be, it still is – QF1/2, QF9/10, SQ1/2, BA15/16, there’s plenty of flights which stop and continue on the same flight number/equipment, either for fuel or interim pickup/dropoff (fifth freedom flights).

  • Tim says:
    2 Nov2 November 09:43

    Having now flown the outbound leg, I can add my comments. It was a very comfortable flight but the lack of a food menu made things very challenging as English was not the crew’s strength.

    However there was a very good bar menu and we tried speciality cocktails. One very strange thing was that although we were flying on to Ho Chi Minh, they will only check our bags for the first leg, so when we got off at Hanoi we had to collect our bags and then make our way outside terminal get the shuttle bus to the domestic terminal and check in again.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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