The design of Long Thanh Airport

JFV, which provided consultancy services and a feasibility study for the first phase of Long Thanh project, has suggested an airport exploitation distribution, under which Long Thanh would undertake 85 percent of international flights, including those of Vietnam Airlines and foreign airlines, and 12 percent of domestic flights of Vietnam Airlines.

Other domestic airlines, including Vietjet Air, Jetstar Pacific, Vasco and Bamboo Airways, which is expected to get a license soon, would only use the existing Tan Son Nhat Airport.

JFV is a joint venture gathering top consulting and design firms in the airport construction industry, namely JAV from Japan, APDi from France, Nippon Koei and OC Global from Japan, and ADCC & TEDI from Vietnam.

Opinions vary about the suggested plan. Some analysts said it is unfair to allow Vietnam Airlines to become the only domestic air carrier to use Long Thanh Airport for domestic flights. They said in a market economy, the existence of one player in the playing field will lead to a monopoly.

Meanwhile, others denied that Vietnam Airlines gets favors. Vietnam Airlines would be at a disadvantage, because Long Thanh is farther from the central area than Tan Son Nhat, while the transport infrastructure connecting the central area and Long Thanh is still poor. Moreover, it will take time to attract passengers, who are used to Tan Son Nhat in inner HCMC.

Nguyen Thien Tong, an aviation expert, also said that Vietnam Airlines would be at a disadvantage, while other Vietnamese air carriers would get bigger benefits as they can exploit the spaces left by Vietnam Airlines at Tan Son Nhat.

Tong doesn’t agree with the plan suggested by JFV, describing the proposal as an ‘arbitrary imposition’.

The planners of Long Thanh Airport wanted to replace Tan Son Nhat with Long Thanh and ‘declare death’ for Tan Son Nhat. However, some experts asserted that Tan Son Nhat needs to be maintained and developed at full swing for the sake of the HCMC super-urban area. They stressed that Long Thanh has the function of sharing the overloading of Tan Son Nhat, while it must not replace Tan Son Nhat.

Long Thanh Airport, covering an area of 5,000 hectares in Long Thanh district of Dong Nai province, is expected to be a 4F-class airport with the capacity of 100 million passengers and 5 million tons of cargo per annum. The total investment capital is $16.06 billion under the 2014 exchange rate.

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