The construction of Long Thanh International Airport in the southern province of Dong Nai is urgent and necessary, Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Hong Truong said, mainly due to Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport being overloaded.

In a meeting in HCM City on October 16, Truong said Tan Son Nhat Airport was running at maximum capacity, accommodating 20 million passengers in 2013, and needed to be expanded to cater for 50 million passengers a year. He predicted the airport would be overcrowded by 2016 or 2017.

To increase the airport’s capacity to 50 million passengers per year would require investments of at least 9.1 billion USD and approximately 140,000 households would be displaced, while the surrounding transport infrastructure would not be able to cope with the influx in traffic, he added.

 

Meanwhile, head of the Vietnam Civil Aviation Authority Lai Xuan Thanh said services at Tan Son Nhat Airport were likely to deteriorate between 2017 and 2023, a point in time when Long Thanh Airport will probably not be ready yet.

According to the approved plan, the Long Thanh International Airport project will be carried out in three phases. During the first phase, which lasts until 2025, the airport will be able to serve 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo per year.

An estimated 164 trillion VND (nearly 7.8 billion USD) will be allocated to Phase 1, with 85 trillion VND coming from the State budget and the rest being official development assistance.

It is expected to process 80 million and 100 million passengers each year by the end of the second phase in 2030 and the end of the third phase, respectively.

Nguyen Nguyen Hung, Chairman of the Member Council of the Airports Corporation of Vietnam, said the establishment of Long Thanh Airport not only reduces the burden on Tan Son Nhat Airport, but is also part of the Vietnamese aviation industry’s development strategy.

Source: VNA