Last year they handled 103.5 million passengers.

Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCM City suffers from chronic traffic congestion inside and outside despite the efforts of the city's People’s Committee, the Ministry of Transport and other agencies.

Airport authorities have yet to identify the contractor for building the third terminal. The new terminal will be designed to handle 20 million passengers annually, helping to resolve the traffic congestion and develop the airport in accordance with the master plan approved by the Government.

The overload is the reason why no more slots are allotted to foreign or local airlines at the airport.

Overloading is a serious problem also at some of the other international airports such as Cam Ranh airport in central Khanh Hoa Province and Da Nang Airport.

Da Nang Airport, which has a capacity of 10 million passengers per annum, received 13.2 million last year.

Cam Ranh, with a capacity of 6.5 million, handled more than 8.2 million people last year.

The numbers of passengers using other airports such as Tho Xuan in Thanh Hoa Province, Cat Bi in Hai Phong City, Vinh, Phu Cat in Binh Dinh Province, and Tuy Hoa in Quy Nhon City has also reached the designed capacity.

According to the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), since 2012 a number of airports have been upgraded taking the total design capacity of its airports from 50.1 million passengers a year to 96.05 million.

Tan Son Nhat Airport’s capacity increased from 18 million to 28 million passengers, Noi Bai airport’s from 6 million to 25 million, Da Nang Airport’s from 6 million to 10 million, and Cam Ranh airport’s from 2.5 million to 6.5 million.

Urgent tasks

There are five carriers in the country, Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, Jetstar, Vasco, and Bamboo Airways.

Besides, applications have been submitted to start Vietstar Airlines, Vietravel Airlines and Vinpearl Air.

Aviation experts say to ease the pressure on Tan Son Nhat Airport, construction of T3 is an urgent requirement.

The ACV has to choose an experienced company for the construction, experts say.

Along with the construction of the terminal, the ACV must also speed up construction of Long Thanh International Airport in southern Dong Nai Province.

If the construction of Long Thanh Airport is delayed and not completed by 2025, the pressure would remain on Tan Son Nhat Airport, and the areas around it would still have to suffer from severe traffic congestion, they added.

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