The administration of Noi Bai International Airport advised people to travel by public transportation to and from the Hanoi-based aerodrome to prevent congestion due to the number of daily passengers spiking.

Bottlenecks often occurr in the automobile lane leading to the T1 terminal of Noi Bai, prolonging the time arrivals wait to be picked up.

After the long wait in the pick-up lane, passengers often get stuck at the toll station’s exit for another ten minutes.

The congestion is attributed to the surge in passengers, mostly domestic travelers, in recent days, according to the airport administration.

The airport served 102,000 passengers on June 24, including 91,000 domestic passengers, and more than 104,000 passengers, with nearly 93,000 domestic flyers, on the next day.

Passenger traffic is projected to hit 110,000 per day at the beginning of July.

On average, the number of domestic passengers passing through Noi Bai soared more than 40 percent compared to that in the summer’s peak time of 2019 and exceeded the T1 terminal’s designed capacity of 15 million passengers a year, or around 41,000 passengers per day.

The T1 terminal has been in operation since 2001, providing about 400 car parking lots, later expanded to 555.

The surging domestic travel demand caused the number of private cars entering and exiting the terminal to pick up passengers to triple that before the COVID-19 pandemic, while overloading the terminal.

As a quick fix, the Noi Bai administration asks passengers to use public means of transport, instead of private vehicles, to travel to and from the airport.

Currently, six public bus routes connect the airport with the center of Hanoi, but the rate of passengers using them has fallen 70 percent compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The airport also capped the time for private automobiles to pick up passengers at five minutes.

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