HA NOI — Tan Son Nhat Airport in HCM City is to be expanded to create space to service 10 additional passenger jets, while Ha Noi's Noi Bai Airport also has plans to add more space for aircraft to meet an explosive demand for air travel.
The Southern Airports Corporation has submitted their plans to increase the capacity of Tan Son Nhat Airport to the Civil Aviation Administration of Viet Nam (CAAV).
Nguyen Nguyen Hung, general director of the Southern Airports Corporation, said that capacity at Tan Son Nhat Airport is just enough to serve 20 million passengers a year, or 54,800 passengers a day. However during the traditional Tet holidays, Tan Son Nhat Airport received in excess of 58,000 passengers a day.
Under the new plan, Tan Son Nhat's present 42 bays will be increased to 52.
Noi Bai Airport currently has 24 parking bays, receiving nearly 90 flights a day. Nevertheless, the airport can become overloaded, meaning aircraft must queue up to take off or land, which leads to delayed flight or cancellations.
However, those plans were only a temporary solution while waiting for the construction of Long Thanh Airport in the southern province of Dong Nai. The project is expected to begin in 2011 and its first phase is expected to be completed by 2015.
Over the next few years, the national flag carrier, Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar Pacific Airlines plan to increase their fleets to over 100 aircraft. These companies and hundreds of other overseas airlines face major problems due to the country's limited aviation capacity. Two private airlines, Air Mekong and Blue Sky, are also set to join the domestic air market.
In 2009, Viet Nam's airports handled over 26 million passengers and 445,800 tonnes of cargo, a four-fold increase on 2000.
In the first seven months of this year, air passenger numbers rose 33 per cent over last year to 12 million, and this figure is forecast to increase by 35-40 per cent this year alone.
Lai Xuan Thanh, deputy head of CAAV, said that his agency was working with carriers to formulate five and ten-year development strategies to install extra aircraft bays.
Forty-five domestic and foreign airlines are currently operating on 55 international air routes to and from Viet Nam. Vietnam Airlines and Jetstar Pacific also service 40 routes nationwide. — VNS
Vietnam is looking for partnerships with foreign investors to develop Phu Bai Airport in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue into an international one that can serve five million passengers in 2020.