Review – VietJet Airbus A320 Hong Kong – Phu Quoc

When I booked the ticket the departure time was 15:40 and arrival time 17:25, however, right after I had booked the schedule was adjusted and new flight timings were 16:40 departure time and 18:25 arrival time. Not ideal as I was hoping to get a half evening around town the day I arrived, but there should still be time for that if we arrived on time.

• In this series:
• Introduction to my trip to Phu Quoc
• Review – VietJet A320 Hong Kong – Phu Quoc
• Review – Shells Resprt and Spa, Phu Quoc
• Around Phu Quoc report
• Review – Vietjet A320 Phu Quoc – Hong Kong.

On the day of departure I got an email from VietJet saying the flight was delayed, and new estimated departure time would be 17:00. Not too much of a delay, and I appreciated the fact that they emailed me to inform me of the delay so I could adjust my time accordingly. I decided to leave home around 14:30, to give me time for a late lunch at the airport before departure.

• Flight details:
• Departure: Hong Kong
• Destination: Phu Quoc, Vietnam
• Airline: VietJet Air
• Aircraft: Airbus A320, VN-A650
• Date of departure: 2 October 2019
• Time of departure: 15:40 19:02
• Time of arrival: 17:25 20:25
• Flight duration: 2:23

VietJet Check-in is in terminal 2 at Hong Kong airport. I quickly located the counter (online check-in is not available in Hong Kong), and although there were only 2 people in front of me in the queue, it took about 15 minutes before it was my turn to check in. I had already paid for the emergency exit seat, and I got the boarding pass within a couple of minutes (after they had checked that my hand-carry did not exceed 7 kg.) The boarding pass said the gate would be gate 8, which is a very short walk.

From terminal 2 it is a quick 2 minutes train ride to terminal 1, and I headed upstairs to the foodcourt for my lunch. There is a newly opened Gordon Ramsay restaurant there that I as excited to try, and I ordered myself a southern fried chicken burger and a pint of beer – after my staff discount was applied it cost me 120 HKD, which was very reasonable.

The fries were really good, but the burger was barely luke warm and quite dry, so it was nothing like what I had expected – I kind of wished Gordon himself was there, so I could have returned the food to him, but since he was not I decided just to eat it and complain about it on social media instead 😀

While I was eating the departure gate was updated to 523 instead of 8 – which would mean the aircraft was probably remotely parked and we would have to ride a bus to get to it. At about 16:15 I headed to the gate. Arriving there the boarding time was now changed to 18:00, so I just had a seat and read my book while I waited for the boarding call.

Just around 18:00 boarding did indeed start, and as we were only about 75 passengers we all fit into one bus, and had a quick drive to stand 104.

As I was boarding the flight I was exited to see the flight attendants, as I have seen some of their promotional videos before where they are the ‘bikini airline’…

As you can imagine, I was quite disappointed when I walked up the stairs and was greeted by 2 male cabin crew (but also quite relieved that they were normal cabin crew uniforms…)

My seat was 14F, and being an emergency exit there was plenty of legroom.

The seats were very comfortable, leather seats, and very slim armrests, which makes the seat itself wider as no space is wasted there. I was the only one who appeared to have paid for the extra space, so I had the 3-seater for myself for the entire flight.

Being seated at the emergency exit the crew gave me an extra security brief, and told me to review the safety card in case of emergency.

Boarding was completed around 18:15, however, there was a runway change in progress at the airport, and we were left sitting on the stand for about 20 minutes before we pushed back, and taxied out for a Runway 07 right departure. Finally at 19:02 were we airborne, 3:20 behind the original schedule and 2:20 behind the revised one.

Shortly after departure the cabin crew came around selling food and drinks, and I ordered myself a can of beer, the cost was 50.000 Dong. I had changed to some Dong earlier at the exchange shop in Tung Chung, but only had 100.000 Dong notes. The cabin crew did not have any change, and asked me if I wanted a 2nd beer instead of the change, which I accepted.

The beer served was Bia Saigon Special, which I had not tried before. unfortunately the beer was warm, but it was served with 2 cups of ice cubes, so had to poor the beer into the papercups to get it cold – probably part of the reason why it didn’t taste particularly nice 😀

The flight took us south of Hainan Island, then we entered Vietnam close to Da Nang, before we entered Laos, Cambodia and then re-entered Vietnam close to Phu Quoc.

As there is no other service through the flight, the rest of the flight was uneventful, at least until we were on the descent into Phu Quoc, when we passed one of the most intense electrical storms I have ever seen form a flight.

We finally landed at 20:25, and it was a quick walk from the arrival gate to immigration.