HCMC to get military land this month for new airport terminal

It will immediately transfer 14.7 ha and the rest before Oct. 30 for construction of the third terminal (T3) at Tan Son Nhat International Airport.

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

The government has also approved the handover of 11.8 ha to build a road leading to the terminal, and it will be done after the city makes the payment for the initial acquisition.

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

The work is expected to cost VND10.99 trillion ($470 million) and be funded by the state-owned Airports Corporation of Vietnam.

In July Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had said the 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. Once completed, T3 will also serve domestic 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.