HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City-based TanSon Nhat International Airport is seeking permission from the Civil AviationAuthority of Vietnam (CAAV) to repair a severely downgraded runway at night.

If approved, runway 25R/07L, one of the airport’s tworunways, is expected to be closed from midnight to 7am daily between February27 and March 9.

It is only a precursor of some major renovation that has beenplanned.

The work would be funded by the airport’s own resources, aspokesperson said.

There are visible cracks and deformation on the runway, withairplane wheel marks scarring its surface. 

Worse still, subsidence of its surface poses a potentialthreat to aircraft safety, according to airport authorities.

The runway is designed to handle wide-bodied aircraft usedfor long-haul flights for 10 years or 55,100 take-offs and landings. But inless than five years, by April 2018, there had been a total of 126,000take-offs and landings.  

Vietnam’s major airports have been overloaded for years.Damages to runways and taxiways have been reported since 2016, though fewrepairs have been done since they are constantly in use.

The Ministry of Transport has asked the Government toallocate funds or permit the Airport Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) to eitherdraw money from its airport operations or advance its own capital to repair thedamaged runways and taxiways in the country’s two largest airports, Tan SonNhat and Noi Bai airport in Hanoi.

Earlier this year the ACV, which operates 22 of the 23airports in the country, sought the government’s approval for the repairs.

The repairs are expected to cost 1.87 trillion VND in Tan SonNhat and 2.27 trillion VND in Noi Bai, according to the ministry.

Downgraded runways and taxiways must be shut down unlessrepairs are carried out as soon as possible, according to the ACV.

New terminal delayed

A plan to build a third passenger terminal at Tan Son Nhatairport, originally considered urgent, has been put off for two years.

Speaking at a recent meeting, Deputy Minister of Transport LeDinh Tho, said building the new terminal and ensuring it would be operationalby 2022 was an extremely urgent task. 

It was projected to cost 11.43 trillion VND (493.2 millionUSD), with the ACV bringing in the entire amount.

It said terminals T1 and T2 at Tan Son Nhat had a maximumcapacity of 28 million passengers per year, but the figure was expected toreach 45 million by 2025.

The Government has agreed in principle that the ACV wouldcarry out the work, but due to discrepancies between the Civil Aviation Law andthe Investment Law, legal procedures for the new terminal are yet to becompleted.

ACV Chairman Lai Xuan Thanh said it would take 36-37 monthsto build terminal T3.

But even in the best case scenario, with the Governmentapproving this month and subsequent steps being implemented without anyproblems, the deadline of 2022 was not possible, he said.

The country’s largest and busiest airport handled over 40million passengers last year, 1.6 times its designed capacity. 

Hanoi’s Noi Bai international airport handled 29 millioncompared to its capacity of 21 million./.