VietNamNet Bridge - The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) thinks a second Noi Bai airport is necessary, but aviation experts disagree. 

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The proposed Noi Bai 2 Airport would have a designed capacity of 25 million passengers a year.

The airport is designed to cover an area of 720 hectares in the three communes in Soc Son district. 

The total investment capital of the airport would be estimated at $5 billion.

Lai Xuan Thanh, head of CAAV, in an interview to Chinhphu.vn, said that Noi Bai Airport has capacity of 25 million passengers a year. 

However, with the current hot growth (22 percent in 2015 and 31 percent in the first four months of the year), Noi Bai is expected to be overloaded in just three years, like Tan Son Nhat Airport in HCM City at present.

If modern management technology can be applied to Noi Bai, the airport would be expected to receive 34 flights every one hour per runway, or 250,000 flights every year and 40 million passengers.
Under the Hanoi Transport Network Development Planning for 2030-2050, which has been approved by the Prime Minister, after 2030, Noi Bai would have the capacity of 50 million passengers.

However, Thanh said this would be a ‘second Long Thanh project’ and it would be even more complicated than Long Thanh because of difficulties in site clearance. The work would cost $2 billion.

Long Thanh Airport is planned for the southern province of Dong Nai in an aim to help ease the overloading of Tan Son Nhat Airport in HCM City. The project, after much debate, has been approved by the National Assembly.

Like Long Thanh, the Noi Bai 2 project has stirred up the public. 

“It would be a waste to build Noi Bai 2 Airport. It is not necessary to build the airport, and it will lead to an increase in public debt," said Nguyen Thien Tong, an aviation expert from the HCM City University of Technology.

Tong said on Dat Viet that the demand is not as high as forecasted by CAAV.

The demand of domestic passengers can be satisfied by other solutions, including the development of Gia Lai Airport’s capacity and of short-distance air routes to Cat Bi, Tho Xuan and Vinh Airports.

If modern management technology can be applied to Noi Bai, the airport would be expected to receive 34 flights every one hour per runway, or 250,000 flights every year and 40 million passengers.

In theory, according to ICAO (the International Civil Aviation Organization), 44 flights can serve one runway every hour. 


Thanh Mai