Long Thanh International Airport: “Making up for lost time”
At the site of Long Thanh International Airport, 40 kilometers east of Ho Chi Minh City, construction runs 24 hours a day, reports Vietnam News.
While elsewhere around the country thousands of Vietnamese celebrated 80 years of independence during this year’s four-day long weekend, a reported 14,000 engineers and workers labored around the clock to fast-track progress on construction of a new megascale airport which has faced numerous delays and setbacks.
The 5,000-hectare airport development is a key national project which has attracted USD $18.7 billion in total investment according to the Vietnamese government, and aims to “relieve pressure on the overburdened Tan Son Nhat International Airport and serve as Viet Nam’s premier international gateway.”
During his 8th site visit last month, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh doubled down on an order for the airport to be operational by 19 December 2025, a year ahead of the 2026 schedule previously approved by the National Assembly.
There’s growing urgency from the Prime Minister as the year enters its final quarter: no more delays, and a push for early completion. Local media suggests teams have been urged to work “through sun and rain” on arrangements of “three shifts, four crews” through weekends to make that order a reality.
Here’s the situation update on Long Thanh International Airport.
A solution to Tan Son Nhat International Airport’s congestion problem
Construction of the mega airport – set to be Vietnam’s largest – officially began on 5 January 2021.
Future Southeast Asia reports the site in southern Dong Nai province was previously a rubber plantation and farmland area home to some 5,000 households and 17,000 residents.
According to Vietnam News, the project had been “plagued by delays since being approved in 2015” – attributable largely to challenges with site clearance, resettlement, financing and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Long Thanh International Airport’s first phase was initially slated to be operational from 2026, with a capacity of 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo.
Longer term, the vision is for the airport to become one of Southeast Asia’s major hubs for air travel, capable of servicing 100 million passengers and 5 million tons of cargo annually once all three phases are complete and operational.
That’s expected to alleviate the burden being placed on Ho Chi Minh City’s current Tan Son Nhat International Airport, which only recently expanded its annual maximum capacity to 50 million passengers – up from 30 million – with the addition of its new domestic Terminal 3 in April this year.
More than just an aspirational marker for boosting tourism and socio-economic development, Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) says the Long Thanh airport project also carries important national defense and security implications for Vietnam as well.
A bid to reshape regional aviation networks and connectivity
The new airport’s location paints a picture both ways, depending on perspective.
Framed one way according to VnEconomy, the airport’s prime location in Dong Nai positions Long Thanh to become a “strategic international gateway and a vital node along the India-Pacific economic corridor” for key logistics and transshipment processes.
Local media outlets in August reported one of two proposals being considered included plans to relocate all of Tan Son Nhat’s current international air cargo operations to Long Thanh to enable its long-term relevance as a “regional logistics powerhouse.”
According to state-run project investor ACV, it’s expected Long Thanh International Airport will contribute 3-5 per cent to Vietnam’s total annual GDP once fully operational, creating an “airport economic system” which will enable tens of thousands of jobs for industries in the airport’s vicinity.
Provincial authorities are also reportedly at work on a new Dong Nai green free trade zone (FTZ) which will span more than 8,200 hectares, connecting Long Thanh with four industrial park areas via existing seaports, expressways, and high-speed rail connections.
Connectivity challenges and the two-airport dilemma
With the addition of Long Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City joins the ranks of numerous other two-airport cities in the region such as Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
While the new airport sits at a key node between major highways such as the Long Thanh-Dau Giay and Bien Hoa-Vung Tau expressways, longer term high-speed rail infrastructure linkages - which would be necessary for Long Thanh to realize its logistics ambitions - remain pending and in search of investors.
Those yet-to-be-built transport links pose immediate problems for determining which airlines and flight types can and should be shifted from Tan Son Nhat to Long Thanh – especially as the December 19 deadline fast approaches for the new airport to receive its first flight.
James Clark outlines “Ho Chi Minh City’s two airports problem” in a comprehensive and solutions-focused piece for Future Southeast Asia which weighs the short- and long-term options for Long Thanh International Airport.
While the long-view bid on Long Thanh is headed in the right direction, Clark says it’ll be a difficult sell for most domestic visitors and tourists, “considering that there may not be an airport rail link for another decade, and … motorways [are still] not complete.”
Central issues at the heart of whether the new airport will successfully take off, or risk becoming a useful-but-underutilized facility, stem from these concerns surrounding the level and preparedness of the new airport’s surrounding infrastructure connectivity.
Dan Tien and Van Nguyen elaborate on the idea of an “integrated airport city” with synchronized multimodal transport systems built in from the outset in this well-ventilated VnEconomy piece. In it, they suggest that independent scheduling of major roadworks and infrastructure arteries between local and provincial-level planning authorities poses a coordination issue likely to spill over into delays and patchwork solutions.
While practical challenges remain, there’s no doubt that the additional capacity enabled by the new airport will be an asset for Ho Chi Minh City as it strives towards its place as an international financial hub.
Consider these the challenges fit for a project the scale of Long Thanh’s long-term regional ambitions.
See it in pictures
Confused? It’s a complicated project. Here are our few picks on best pictures to get a sense of the project’s scale and progress:
- September update from Nhan Dan – Over 6,000 personnel work on Long Thanh Airport over national day holiday
- July update from Vietnam Net – Many elements at Long Thanh airport project revealed
- July update from VnExpress – Appearance of two routes connecting Long Thanh airport