Construction starts for third terminal at Tan Son Nhat airport

Attending the ground-breaking ceremony for the project, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said transport infrastructure development, including freight transport infrastructure, is one of the three strategic breakthroughs for the country’s sustainable socio-economic development.

“The diversification of modes of transport is an important factor to boost the improvement of the transportation network,” he said.

The T3 terminal project will contribute to promoting socio-economic development, and ensure security and defence of HCM City and the southern region.

The State-owned Airports Corporation of Vietnam is carrying out the work at a cost of nearly 11 trillion VND (463.2 million USD).

The construction is expected to take 37 months.

The number of passengers going through Tan Son Nhat airport has surged in recent years to nearly double its designed capacity.

The airport has two terminals now, with T1 serving domestic flights and T2 handling international flights. T1 can serve up to 15 million passengers a year and T2, 10 million.

The airport was designed to handle 25 million passengers a year by 2020, but it has been receiving almost 40 million a year since 2017.

Once completed, T3 will handle domestic flights and up to 20 million passengers annually.

With the COVID pandemic ending and the economy showing strong recovery, passenger numbers have surged again as aviation and tourism recover.

This has again caused overcrowding at major airports in the country such as Tan Son Nhat and Noi Bai in Hanoi.