Tan Son Nhat runway shut down again for upgrade

According to the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam, the runway will be temporarily closed from Feb. 21 to March 15 for the upgrade work.

The repair and upgrade of the 25R/07L runway, three kilometers long and 46 meters wide, was completed in late 2020 after it was started in July that year. During this period, the entire runway remained closed.

When the runway is shut down, the CAAV will adjust the number of flights at Tan Son Nhat to 30 per hour compared to 36-48 between Feb. 21 and Apr. 30, according to a report by Giao Thong newspaper, managed by the Ministry of Transport.

The entire project to upgrade Tan Son Nhat will cost a total 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.