Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked the Transport Ministry to consider a proposal not to build the Long Thanh international airport in southern Dong Nai province. The proposal is made by a former aviation manager and a former pilot, who said the planned airport would cause inconvenience to passengers.

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The proposer are former head of the management department at the Tan Son Nhat Airport Le Trong Sanh and former pilot of Flight Crew Division 919 Mai Trong Tuan.

They maintained that in order to meet the increasing demand for air travel, the Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat airport should be expanded instead of investing in a new airport in Dong Nai.

In talking with Tuoi Tre on August 16 about their proposal, both Sanh and Tuan said the Tan Son Nhat airport has long been a well-known brand of a historical value for both local and foreign passengers. Therefore, the airport’s operation should be maintained.

It will be a mistake to build a new airport and turn the Tan Son Nhat airport into a domestic one, since the location of the new airport would be inconvenient to transit passengers as well as transit goods, the proposers said. “There will be no international who like to arrive in an airport in Long Thanh and then take a road trip to HCMC to take domestic flights, “Tuan said. On the other hand, it is unadvisable to build a new costly airport while the country’s economy is facing many difficulties, the proposers said.

Meanwhile, the expansion of the airport to the north, where a golf course is expected to be built, is totally feasible, they added.

Not new proposal

The Transport Ministry said it is preparing a report to the Prime Minister about the proposal, adding that, actually, this is not a new one.

In talking with Tuoi Tre on Friday, Lai Xuan Thanh, head of the Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) said this proposal was issued two years ago and the ministry has considered and assessed it carefully. “At previous meetings of the National Assembly, the Transport Minister answered many questions by some National Assembly delegations that cited the proposal of Sanh and Tuan. These delegations had transferred the proposal to the ministry for consideration,” Thanh explained. 

The airport project has also been presented at many seminars to collect opinions from experts. “In a recent seminar in July, we invited them [Sanh and Tuan] but they did not attend,” Thanh said.

The official affirmed that all the opinions of Sanh and Tuan have been analyzed and clarified in a relevant report prepared by the Japan Airport Consultants Inc. (JAC), the project’s consultant.  

These opinions have also been mentioned and clarified in a statement about the project that has been submitted by the Transport Ministry to the State Appraisal Council for consideration, Thanh said.

After the Council agrees to the project, the ministry will submit it to the Government, which will then refer it to the National Assembly for approval, Thanh said.New airport is more cost effective, less impact Besides the project for a new airport, Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), the project’s investor, has asked JAC to prepare two other projects for consideration and selection, an official at ACV said. Of these two projects, one is for expanding the Tan Son Nhat airport and the other for upgrading the Bien Hoa military airport (in Dong Nai). After comparison of the three projects, experts found that the Long Thanh International Airport Project is more cost effective while has fewer impacts on residents than the other two. The expansion of Tan Son Nhat airport to make it equivalent to the planned airport in Long Thanh will cost as much as over US$25,2 billion in total and require relocation of 140,000 people in many districts. Meanwhile, the project to upgrade the Bien Hoa airport needs a total cost of $12.1 billion, and a new air base must be set up.

Therefore, of the three projects, the Long Thanh International Airport Project is the best, as it cost only $7.81 billion [not $4-5.6 billion as previously announced] and requires a relocation of 1,500 households, ACV said.

As previously reported, the plan to build the airport received a go-ahead from the government in August 2011. The airport’s terminal is expected to be capable of competing with other large airports in Southeast Asia.

The airport’s construction will be implemented in three stages, with the first one expected to start in 2015, and the facility is scheduled to become operational by 2020, and will be capable of handling 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo per year.

The figures are expected to reach 100 million passengers and 5 million tons in the last stage, starting in 2030. The terminal will be able to receive large aircraft such as the A380-800.

Dong Nai authorities have also unveiled a development plan for the 21,000 hectare area surrounding the upcoming airport, the largest such facility in Vietnam.