Vietnam strives to reduce congestion at overloaded int'l airport

The project, with an investment of about 33.5 million U.S. dollars, will be completed within six months, said the municipal Transport Department.
In recent years, roads leading to Tan Son Nhat airport often face traffic jams, sometimes forcing passengers to walk to the airport. Last month, the Vietnamese government has asked Ho Chi Minh City authorities to increase the airport's service capacity to 40-50 million passengers a year from the current 25 million. It is now overloaded, serving 28 million passengers annually.
According to a plan, the airport will be upgraded in three years with an investment of 19,700 billion Vietnamese dong (879 million U.S. dollars).
The first envisages construction of all landing roads and taxiways, parking bays, terminals and supporting facilities on the golf course situated to the north, and the use of surrounding areas to enlarge the airport. This would take 10-15 years for construction and removal of 140,000 households, and cost of 201.35 trillion Vietnamese dong (US$8.9 billion).
Plan No 2 includes parallel taxiways and runways, and upgrades to the existing runway in the northern part of the airport (25L/07R Runway). It also includes a parallel runway and a parking bay in the northern section, a mixed-use (military and civil aviation) terminal that can handle 10 million passengers a year in the southern section of the airport and the 10-million-passenger T4 terminal. The plan, estimated to cost 61 trillion Vietnamese dong and take 8-10 years, will allow the airport to handle 43-45 million passengers a year.
Plan No 2 B includes a second taxiway parallel to runways in the north, a taxiway connecting the new runway and parking bays, and terminal T4, besides the mixed-use terminal in the south.
It will cost 93 trillion Vietnamese dong and take 10-12 years. The plan also includes construction of runway No 3 and parking bays in the north, and the mixed-use 10-million-passenger terminal in the south and the 10-million-passenger T4 terminal.
Plan No 2C is similar to plan No 2B, but with a bigger capacity for T4 of 25-30 million passengers. This will raise the capacity of the airport to 68-70 million passengers and take 131 trillion Vietnamese dong and over 10 years.
Plan No 2D includes construction of terminal T5, which will help the airport handle 78-80 million passengers and take 185.5 trillion Vietnamese dong and over 15 years.
Plan No 3 includes construction of a parallel taxiway and more connecting runways and parking bays and runways in parallel and between the take-off and landing runways, besides upgrades to the northern runway and construction of a mixed-use 10-million-passenger T3 terminal in the south. This plan, which will use military land, is estimated to cost 19.7 trillion Vietnamese dong and take less than three years. It will enable the airport to handle 43-45 million passengers.