Co-operation deal with Air France

Vietnam Airlines and Air France have been co-operating for 20 years on aircraft maintenance and crew training and began code sharing in 2010, but they said the partnership agreement signed by their leaders on Tuesday would further ties.

Under the agreement, which begins in November, Vietnam Airlines passengers will be able to connect to 70 European destinations, up from a current 14, and Air France passengers will be able to reach 20 Vietnamese destinations, up from three. Vietnam received 10 million foreign tourists in 2016, up 26 percent from the previous year, with China, the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States the top sources of visitors.