Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh ordered the Ministry of Transport on Saturday to commence construction of the third terminal at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport in the third quarter.
The project must be implemented with the highest speed and completed by September 2024 at the latest, the PM said at a meeting with relevant authorities on the airport's overload.
The third terminal (T3) project, with an investment capital of nearly VND11,000 billion ($471 million), received the government's in-principle approval two years ago. It is set to raise Tan Son Nhat’s annual capacity from 30 million passengers to 50 million, with the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) as investor.
The project, previously scheduled to start implementation at the end of last year, has stayed dormant because of land clearance problems.
The government has already asked HCMC to quickly implement related projects at Tan Son Nhat gateways this year to ease the congestion in the area and pave the way for synchronous connection with the T3 terminal.
Airport officials said that arrivals have increased sharply to approach the pre-pandemic peak of 2019. However, this surge has put great pressure on the country's biggest airport that has suffered overload for many years now.
Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh had said in May that top priority must be given to opening Long Thanh International Airport by 2025 as a key national project in southern Vietnam.
The new airport, located in Dong Nai province about 40 kilometers to the east of HCMC, will help relieve overload at the Tan Son Nhat airport. It is designed to receive 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo a year in its first phase. Roughly $5 billion is estimated for the first phase’s investment.
Once complete by 2050, it will be able to handle 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo a year.