Vietnam Airlines orders 12 Boeing Dreamliners

Vietnam Airlines announced Monday that it had signed a deal to buy 12 Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners, with the first to be delivered in 2015.

The airline said in a statement that it had "signed a memorandum of understanding with Boeing to buy 12 more 787-8s."

The agreement was signed last week during a visit by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to New York.

Vietnam Airlines also said that it envisaged flying direct to Los Angeles from Ho Chi Minh city five times per week by the end of next year. It does not currently fly direct to the US.

State-run Vietnam Airlines plans to modernise its fleet of 45 aircraft -- a mix of Boeing, Airbus, ATR and Fokker planes -- to compete against a slew of foreign carriers and new budget airlines.

Air travel is taking off in the communist-ruled country of 84 million, where the economy is growing at over eight percent a year and a new middle class is taking to the skies for both tourism and business travel.