Construction of Vietnam’s biggest airport reaches passenger terminal phase

The project’s investor, the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), started work on the terminal on Wednesday.

The phase will start with the foundation work, which will see contractors build nearly 1,600 bored piles with a diameter of 0.8-1.2 meters each.

As scheduled, the pile installation must be completed for the construction of the terminal in October.

Lai Xuan Thanh, ACV chairman, said moving to the stage of building the passenger terminal will create a boost for the construction of Long Thanh to meet its schedule.

Long Thanh in southern Dong Nai Province will replace Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat to become the biggest airport in Vietnam once completed.

Work on the project began on Jan. 5 last year after many years of preparations and lengthy land acquisitions.

In February, a year after work began, only fencing and demining had been done, causing Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to complain over the progress.

Estimated to cost $16 billion in total, the airport will have an annual capacity of 100 million passengers and five million tons of cargo.

The first phase is set to be up and running in 2025 to serve 25 million passengers per year.

The original deadline for its opening was December 2025, but Lai Xuan Thanh, ACV’s chairman, said in January that the work will be completed six months ahead of schedule.