During a recent meeting with Transport Minister Nguyen Van The, the People’s Committee of Hanoi capital asked the ministry to early complete the airport’s planning and demarcation to report it to the Prime Minister so that the capital can get the PM’s approval for deploying the site clearance.
Noi Bai Airport could soon be overloaded if no expansion plans are in place
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Under the plan, the airport will be able to accommodate as many as 25 million passengers per year starting in 2020 and 50 million after 2030. It will also have 29 landing areas and will be able to receive 260,000 tons of goods per year by 2020. Space for excess goods will also create.
After 2020, Noi Bai International Airport will continue upgrades, raising the amount of receivable goods to 500,000 tons per year.
The airport will meet the 4F airport standard set by the International Civil Aviation Organization. There will then be three routes for landing and parking, and the airport will be able to accommodate up to 45 airplanes at rush hour.
According to experts, the airport serving the capital city will soon face the same situation as Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat Airport, which is handling more traffic than its intended capacity.
They said that the government currently has to struggle hard to rescue Tan Son Nhat, which has a capacity of only 28 million passengers but has to handle a projected 36.5 million in 2017, calling for acceleration in the execution of the Noi Ban plan.
Last year, Hanoi Chairman Nguyen Duc Chung also warned that Noi Bai Airport could risk being overburdened by both passengers and cargo in the next three to five years if the central government fails to make timely investments.
According to Director of the Civil Aviation Authority Dinh Viet Thang, an assessment of the Noi Bai Airport plan will cost an estimated VND30 billion ($1.32 million) and the agency has proposed hiring foreign consultants for this task.
Currently, ACV, the operator of Noi Bai Airport, is also undertaking a project to expand the domestic Terminal 1 so that it can handle 15 million passengers from 2018.
ACV is also planning to expand Terminal 2, which serves international flights, to 15 million passengers in 2020, which means Noi Bai could handle a total of 30 million passengers in the next three years.
Noi Bai Airport’s passenger throughput reaches some 23.9 million in 2017, up 16.5 percent from the previous year. The figure is expected to increase to 34.5 million in 2020, 54 million in 2025 and 65 million in 2030.
The government recently also signed a decision to approve the revision of the national aviation transport development plan till 2020 with a vision to 2030 in an aim to help Vietnam among the top four leading nations in air traffic in ASEAN.
Under Decision No.236/QĐ-TTg, Vietnam will put 23 airports into operation by 2020, of which three aviation transport centers of Noi Bai, Tan Son Nhat and Danang will be upgraded to make it meet ASEAN standards.
