PM pushes military land handover for Tan Son Nhat’s new terminal

Prime Minister Chinh said at a meeting Wednesday the Ministry of National Defense and Ho Chi Minh City authorities should cooperate so the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) could receive a plot of military land required for the construction of T3, which will be a domestic terminal, within this month.

The government in July approved a plan for HCMC to receive 27.85 hectares of military land to expand Tan Son Nhat.

As confirmed in a government resolution, the defense ministry will hand over 16.05 hectares of land in Tan Binh District to facilitate construction of the terminal, and 11.8 hectares to build a road connecting with the terminal.

The ministry said in mid-October that it would hand over 16.05 hectares of land to HCMC within that month to serve the airport expansion.

It said back then it would immediately transfer 14.7 hectares and the rest by the end of October.

The cost of the land is estimated at VND1.152 trillion ($48.2 million).

However, by Tuesday, only 4.5 hectares of land had been handed to the ACV, which oversees the terminal construction.

T3 will have an annual capacity of 20 million passengers, which will ease the huge load on existing facilities.

The work is expected to cost VND10.99 trillion and be funded by the state-owned ACV.

In July, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had said construction should be “completed by September 2024 at the latest.”

Tan Son Nhat is the largest and busiest airport in Vietnam, with terminals 1 and 2 used for domestic and international flights.

It handles 840-850 flights and 130,000 passengers a day.

The airport has been overloaded for years, and the result is visible cracks and deformation as well as subsidence of runways and taxiways.

It has been serving 36 million passengers a year since 2017 against a designed capacity of 25 million a year by 2020.

At the Wednesday meeting, PM Chinh also ordered reviews and punishments on units who have been late to deploy infrastructure projects.

Deputy Minister Le Van Thanh said the target until 2025 is to complete building 3,000 kilometers of expressways and the first phase of Long Thanh airport in Dong Nai Province that borders HCMC, which will replace Tan Son Nhat to become Vietnam’s biggest airport.