Tan Son Nhat airport’s upgraded runway to open to service Monday

Tran Van Thi, director of the My Thuan Project Management Board, authorized by the Ministry of Transport to manage the airport upgrade project, said Saturday that the renovations of Tan Son Nhat airport’s runway and taxiway have been completed.

The newly built and renovated taxiways will be put into operation to help serve increasing travel demand for the upcoming four-day holidays, including the Reunification Day on April 30 and Labor Day on May 1.

The three-km long and 46-meter wide 25R/07L runway was temporarily closed from February 21 to March 15 for the upgrade work.

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

The number of passengers passing through Tan Son Nhat airport has been increasing after the country eased Covid restrictions on travel.

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

The entire project to upgrade Tan Son Nhat costs a total 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, which 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.

In Hanoi’s Noi Bai Internatiaonal Airport, runway 1B also reopened Saturday after being closed for more than a month for upgrading.