Vietnamese carriers are complaining that a proposed plan to upgrade the taxiway at Tan Son Nhat International Airport will force them to cancel up to hundreds of flights and as many as one million passengers to change their flying time during the construction work, thus affecting their business.

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The Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) is slated to expand the taxiway and the airport aprons at the Ho Chi Minh City-based airport from April 10 to June 25, a period during which airlines operating from the terminal must reduce flight numbers.

Tan Son Nhat currently sees up to 30 flights departing or landing on an hourly basis, and the frequency should be cut to 25 flights per hour during the upgrades.

This means carriers have to either cancel or adjust the schedules of a number of flights, which they say will “drive about a million passengers to change their flying time.”

The airport will suffer a huge loss in terms of fee collection, according to the airlines.

“There will be five to seven fewer flights landing at or departing from Tan Son Nhat per hour, or about 80 flights in 12 hours,” a representative from an airline told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

“This means more than ten airplanes will lay dormant on the ground and 10,000 passengers will not be able to board their flights.”

With the upgrades scheduled to take place over two and a half months, the total number of affected passengers could be as many as one million, according to the source.

Tan Son Nhat will lose up to VND12 billion (US$559,232) a day from airport fee collection, given the current VND120,000 per passenger fee. The total loss during the upgrades would be VND1.5 trillion ($69.9 million).

The ACV said that there are now 30 to 32 flights departing from and landing at Tan Son Nhat every hour from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. The number is as high as 39 flights per hour during peak time.

By reducing the frequency to 25 per hour, there will be a few dozen or even up to 100 flights canceled on a daily basis, according to the ACV.

Vietnamese airlines usually embrace the high demand season in late April, when the country celebrates Reunification Day (April 30) and International Labor Day (May 1). This year local employees will have a six-day holiday, from April 28 to May 3, thanks to the coincidence of three national festivals in a week.

Summer is also a peak season for airlines with people taking vacations.

The Vietnamese carriers have thus petitioned to delay the upgrades to August or September to avoid the peak season.

However, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has rejected the request, saying it will be the rainy season then.

CAAV chief Lai Xuan Thanh said implementing the repairs without affecting the flight schedule of the carriers is “a real headache.”

Thanh added that he had assigned relevant agencies to work with the airlines to figure out the best solution to the issue.

“The official starting time for the upgrades remains undecided,” he said.

“It can be delayed to August if we cannot compromise with the airlines… The worst case scenario is we have to push it to next year.”

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