Thai Vietjet Air opens daily Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok flights, its first direct Malaysia route
TAT welcomed the first VZ681 on 9 October with 90% of seats booked, as Malaysia sends more than three million visitors to Thailand this year.
On 9 October the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) welcomed the inaugural Thai Vietjet Air flight VZ681 from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport. The service is a new daily link and marks the launch of the airline's first direct Malaysia route.
The timetable is simple to remember. VZ681 leaves Kuala Lumpur every day at 15:15 and lands at Suvarnabhumi at 16:30. The return, VZ680, departs Bangkok at 11:00 and reaches Kuala Lumpur at 14:10. Both sectors are flown by a Boeing 737-8 with 189 seats.
The opening day went well. The inaugural flight carried 171 booked seats, a 90 per cent load factor on each sector. TAT held a reception at Suvarnabhumi led by Kittipong Prapattong, Deputy Governor for International Marketing, Asia and South Pacific, and Pinyot Pibulsonggram, Vice President of Commercial and Customer at Thai Vietjet Air, was among the arriving passengers.
The route lands in a market that is already large. According to TAT, Malaysia sent 3,006,730 visitors to Thailand between 1 January and 7 October 2026. The main destinations are Songkhla, Bangkok, Narathiwat, Yala, Phuket, Krabi and Satun, and TAT sees room to grow in Phang-nga, Surat Thani, Chiang Rai, Rayong and Kanchanaburi. In its words, the market is characterised by a high proportion of independent and repeat visitors.
To help the airline fill the new seats, TAT and Thai Vietjet Air are running an agent familiarisation trip from 12 to 16 October for representatives of 12 leading Malaysian travel companies. The itinerary covers Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Nakhon Pathom and Samut Songkhram, which shows how far beyond the usual beach stops the two partners want Malaysian travellers to go.
For the traveller, the practical detail is the arrival time. A 16:30 landing means most passengers clear immigration and collect bags as the evening begins. Visitors who return to Thailand and plan their own itineraries often want a scooter or car waiting for the first morning, so it helps to book the vehicle before the flight, confirm the pickup time and check the licence rules that apply to the vehicle in question.
This is the kind of trip Balm Rentals was built around. Balm is a marketplace for renting bikes, scooters and cars in Thailand, and it shows the price, the deposit and the rental terms before the traveller pays. Listings come from legal, verified local rental owners, and the iOS and Android apps and the website are localised so a visitor can read the conditions in their own language.
Balm works alongside local rental businesses rather than in place of them. Having a single place to compare options and confirm a booking before the plane leaves Kuala Lumpur is meant to make the first day on the road calmer for the visitor and more predictable for the owner handing over the keys.
More direct seats between Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok should make short trips easier to plan. For independent travellers, the rest of the planning is now the easy part.
Related reading