Vietnam airport operator ACV records slows disbursement for Long Thanh mega-airport project

Airports Corporation of Vietnam's (ACV) slow disbursement for the Long Thanh International Airport project, located in the southern province of Dong Nai, highlights implementation bottlenecks despite the company's strong profitability in Q1/2026 and substantial cash reserves for the country's largest aviation infrastructure project.

Profit growth continues, deposit interest income drops sharply

In Q1, ACV recorded net revenue of VND6.84 trillion ($259.96 million) and after-tax profit of VND3.35 trillion ($127.32 million), both up about 7% year-on-year.

The net profit margin remained exceptionally high at nearly 49%, reflecting stable operational efficiency amid a strong recovery in travel demand, especially during the Lunar New Year holiday (in February).

Overall, core operations continued to provide a solid cash flow foundation for ACV. Passenger traffic growth helped the company maintain outstanding profitability within the transportation infrastructure sector while continuing to generate large cash reserves for future key investment projects.

However, behind the strong earnings picture was a significant change in the company’s cash flow structure and capital utilization efficiency.

Specifically, financial income from bank deposit interest and financial investments plunged by around 86%, from nearly VND200 billion ($7.6 million) in the same period last year to only about VND28 billion this quarter. This occurred despite ACV maintaining a large amount of cash and short-term financial investments totaling more than VND11 trillion ($418.07 million).

This indicates that the company is no longer prioritizing the optimization of deposit yields as before, but instead maintaining high liquidity to prepare for disbursement needs related to the Long Thanh airport project. In other words, ACV is currently in a “capital ready first, implementation later” position.

The cash flow statement reflects this situation quite clearly. In Q1, ACV withdrew more than VND10 trillion ($380.06 million) from term deposits, equivalent to the level of capital expenditure in Q4/2025. However, actual spending on construction investment fell sharply to only around VND2.6 trillion. Meanwhile, more than VND5 trillion was redeposited into the banking system as short-term deposits.

This development highlights a clear mismatch between ACV’s financial capacity and the actual implementation pace of the airport project. While ACV recorded a very strong disbursement pace for construction investment in Q4/2025, investment progress slowed in Q1/2026 due to legal, payment and implementation-related obstacles.

By the end of the quarter, total investment in the project had increased by only around VND800 billion ($30.4 million) from the beginning of the year, significantly lower than the previous disbursement pace.

One notable point is that despite continuously rotating trillions of VND (VND1 trillion = $38 million) in deposits, ACV’s cash and cash equivalents still increased by more than VND1.6 trillion to VND5.87 trillion ($233.1 million), nearly double the amount recorded in the same period last year.

This suggests that ACV’s biggest challenge now is no longer capital mobilization capacity, but rather the Long Thanh project’s ability to absorb capital during the upcoming peak implementation phase.

Long Thanh airport project faces multiple obstacles

At a meeting reviewing the progress of Phase 1 of the Long Thanh airport project on Monday, Prime Minister Le Minh Hung requested the Ministry of Public Security to direct its Investigation Police Department for Economic, Corruption and Smuggling Crimes (C03) to urgently accelerate investigations and handle violations during the project implementation process, while also creating conditions for contractors to continue implementing project packages on schedule.

Earlier, in an extraordinary disclosure report released on March 5, ACV said the Ministry of Public Security's investigative agency had detained its chairman Vu The Phiet and Nguyen Tien Viet, a board member and deputy CEO.

The two executives are under investigation for allegedly receiving money to facilitate contractors winning bids, in violation of bidding regulations and causing “particularly serious consequences”.

According to the government’s assessment, the project has currently achieved around 76% of the planned workload, equivalent to approximately VND70 trillion ($2.66 billion). However, implementation has encountered many difficulties related to legal procedures, contractor payments, labor shortages, and material supply constraints, causing construction progress at times to become “almost completely stalled.”

The Prime Minister also requested the prompt appointment of ACV’s chairman and CEO to strengthen management efficiency, while instructing the corporation to review completed work volumes in order to make payments to contractors in accordance with regulations. The goal of putting Long Thanh airport into commercial operation in 2026 was emphasized as a “mandatory task that must be completed.”

Long Thanh International Airport, about 40 kilometers east of Ho Chi Minh City, is a mega project with a total investment of VND336.63 trillion ($14.12 billion) divided into three phases. Phase one of the project, with a total investment of nearly VND110 trillion ($4.18 billion), is scheduled for implementation from 2020 to 2026.

The phase comprises four sub-projects. Once phase one is completed, the terminal will have a capacity of 25 million passengers per year and also handle 1.2 million tons of cargo annually.

Phase 2, scheduled by 2035, will expand capacity to 50 million passengers and 1.5 million tons of cargo by adding a second runway and terminal.

In the final phase, Long Thanh is expected to reach full operational capacity of 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo per year by 2050.

The first passenger flights touched down at Long Thanh International Airport on December 19, 2025, marking the inaugural civil aviation operation at Vietnam’s largest airport.

ACV, which manages 22 airports nationwide, reported a record net profit of VND12.07 trillion ($464.81 million) in 2025, up 3% from a year earlier. Its balance sheet expanded sharply as capital spending accelerated.

As of December 31, 2025, its total consolidated assets stood at more than VND90.9 trillion ($3.5 billion), up by VND13.6 trillion ($523.77 million) from the start of the year, reflecting a sharp shift toward long-term investment.

On the unlisted public companies market (UPCoM), ACV shares closed at VND44,800 ($1.7) on Thursday.