Tan Son Nhat airport upgraded runway returns to service

Tran Van Thi, director of the My Thuan Project Management Board, authorized by the Ministry of Transport to manage the airport upgrade project, announced Saturday that the renovations to the runway and taxiways were completed.

The newly built and renovated taxiways have become operational, helping increase the airport’s operating capacity during the upcoming Reunification Day (April 30) and Labor Day (May 1) holidays.

The three kilometers long, 46 meters wide 25R/07L runway had been temporarily closed from February 21 for the upgrade work.

Over the last two months, planes have taken off and landed on the airport’s other runway, 25L/07R.

The number of passengers passing through Tan Son Nhat airport has steadily increased as the country eased all Covid restrictions for air travel.

Last Friday, the airport handled 582 departures and arrivals with over 83,000 passengers, the majority of them arriving at domestic terminals.

The project to upgrade Tan Son Nhat is being implemented at an estimated cost of more than VND2 trillion (over $86 million).

Tan Son Nhat, the country’s largest airport, has been overloaded for many years and the resultant damage has been evident in visible cracks and deformation and subsidence of the asphalt surface on its runways and taxiways. These signs of wear and tear have been reported since 2016.

The airport has been serving 36 million passengers a year since 2017, well above its designed capacity, which was 25 million passengers per year by 2020.

Meanwhile, at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport, runway 1B also reopened Saturday after being closed for more than a month for repairs.