Vietnam's Mega-Airport Long Thanh to Open Dec 1, Aims to Rival Changi

Vietnam's most ambitious airport project, Long Thanh International Airport, is set to partially open on December 1, with a total investment of VND336.63 trillion (US$12.8 billion). Located about 40 km east of Ho Chi Minh City, the airport is being built to relieve the chronically overcrowded Tan Son Nhat International Airport, which has operated beyond its designed capacity for years. Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), the state operator, hopes Long Thanh will evolve into a regional transit hub capable of challenging established gateways in Singapore, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur, and reclaiming long-haul connecting traffic. Long Thanh will initially handle 25 million passengers annually. Its full design capacity of 100 million passengers per year, to be reached in later phases, would surpass Singapore's Changi Airport, which handled a record 69.98 million passengers in 2025 and is expanding towards 140 million. ACV has proposed a plan to divide flights between Long Thanh and Tan Son Nhat by region and route distance. All international routes longer than 1,000 km and all cargo flights will move to Long Thanh. Tan Son Nhat will retain shorter international routes flown by Code C jets like the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, along with some domestic operations. Routes to East Asia, West Asia, Oceania, and Europe will all shift to Long Thanh, while Southeast Asian routes will be split roughly 55% to the new airport and 45% to Tan Son Nhat. The handover will occur in three phases, aligned with airline seasonal schedules. From December 1, 2026, to March 27, 2027, Long Thanh will accommodate all long-haul international and cargo flights, along with new routes and increased frequencies from the HCMC area, accounting for about 19% of the area's international passenger volume. Tan Son Nhat will maintain its existing routes and will not open any new international ones. From March 28 to October 30, 2027, all flights to Europe, the Americas, Oceania, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia will transfer to Long Thanh, leaving Tan Son Nhat with its remaining Northeast and Southeast Asian routes. From October 31, 2027, to March 25, 2028, Long Thanh will handle nearly all international flights, retaining only scheduled sub-1,000 km routes flown by Vietnamese carriers at Tan Son Nhat. ACV aims to transfer more than 90% of the area's international passenger traffic to the new airport by 2027. Domestic flights will largely remain at Tan Son Nhat, though carriers can choose either airport based on demand across all three phases. To meet the timeline, ACV has urged the Ministry of Construction and the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam to expedite approval of the operating plan and passenger fees. It has also called on the government to accelerate the development of connecting infrastructure, including the widening of the HCMC-Long Thanh Expressway, completion of the Bien Hoa-Vung Tau Expressway, and HCMC Ring Road 3.