Crowded Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCM City. (Photo: VNA)During the past few weeks, three provinces, including Tuyen Quang, Son La andKon Tum, sent documents to the Ministry of Transport proposing airports intheir provinces be added to the national airport planning.
Ninh Binh, Ha Tinh, Ninh Thuan, Dak Nong, Ha Giang, Bac Giang and Binh Phuoc provincesalso raised similar proposals in the past.
While four plans for road, maritime, inland waterway and railway are alreadyapproved, planning for the national airport system in the 2021-30 period hasnot yet been completed.
Aviation expert Nguyen Bach Tung said as the planning continues, localities areapplying for permission to build airports to promote socio-economicdevelopment.
According to statistics of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, there arecurrently 22 airports for civil use in Vietnam, though only Van Don InternationalAirport was developed with private investment.
Under the Ministry of Transport's draft, nine more airports will be developedby 2050, bringing the total airports for civil use to 31.
The six airports to be developed by 2030 are Long Thanh, Phan Thiet, Quang Tri,Sa Pa, Lai Chau and Na San. By 2050, a further three, Cao Bang, Hai Phong and asecond airport for Hanoi, will be developed.
Tung said that from each locality's perspective, the airport developmentproposal is understandable as it would help promote tourism and local economicdevelopment. However, when looking at the master planning for the country, therampant development of airports would cause many problems.
"The national airport network needs appropriate planning to avoid airspaceconflicts while ensuring investment efficiency," he said.
Tung cited statistics that in pre-pandemic 2019, there are only four airportshandling over nine million passengers. They were Tan Son Nhat (41 million), NoiBai (29 million), Da Nang (15.5 million) and Cam Ranh (9.7 million).
The privately-invested Van Don Airport received only 259,000 millionpassengers.
Tung said it would be difficult for a newly-built airport to get a capitalreturn if it receives less than five million passengers per year, adding thatthe above figures warned provinces and cities wanting to invest in airportsfollowing Build Operate Transport practices.
According to Nguyen Thien Tong, former head of the Aviation EngineeringDepartment under the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, airlines,particularly private ones, should be hesitant to open routes to airports thatare not attractive to passengers.
He said that it would not be enough if each airport served only two or threeflights per day.
Localities must give careful consideration to the development of airports. Atthe same time, the Ministry of Transport must consider the feasibility andefficiency of developing the national airport planning because many smallairports have been running at a loss for many years.
Nguyen Bach Tung, deputy director of the ministry's Transport EngineeringConstruction and Quality Management Bureau, said most domestic airports do notyet operate at their designed capacity, even those newly built with largecapacity such as Van Don and Can Tho.
One of the most important issues when deciding to build an airport wascarefully calculating the investment efficiency, Tung said, adding that theairport development would not be appropriate if the travel distance were tooclose.
Tran Quang Chau, president of the Vietnam Association of Aviation Science andTechnology, said that the planning must be based on several factors such astravel distance between airports, travel demand and the development of flightroutes for each airport, as well as economic efficiency factors.
An expert even warned that proposals of adding airports to the planning by somelocalities were quite infeasible but had significant impacts on the real estatemarket, which inflated land prices. Airport planning should be completed andissued early to prevent land speculation.
According to the Ministry of Transport, 28 airports by 2030 would help increasethe total airport capacity to about 283 million passengers per year and ensurethat over 95% of the population have access to one airport within a 100kmvicinity. This density is appropriate compared to other countries such asThailand and Malaysia.
A representative from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, the airportdevelopment should be focused and investing in developing large-scale ports tocreate breakthroughs. The viewpoint was to develop synchronously, he said,adding that airports were a necessary but not a sufficient condition for thedevelopment of a province.
Airport development should also align with the country's long-term developmentgoals, such as investment attraction and tourism promotion, to create groundfor the economy to take off.
Transport Engineering Design Inc (TEDI) states that new airport developmentmust be based on six main criteria: travel demand, socio-economic factors,national security, emergency relief, natural conditions, and distancearrangement./.
VNA
