Ho Chi Minh City’s Upcoming Long Thanh International Airport: 5 Fast Facts

Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing commercial air travel markets in the work. Airports in the country are forecast to serve 78.3 million passengers in 2024, up 8% year-on-year, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV). This is driven by surging international passenger traffic, which will reach 43.5 million in 2024, up 33% from 2023. The country is also home to Southeast Asia’s busiest air route and the fourth-busiest in the world, with airlines on the Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City route serving nearly 11,000,000 passengers last year.
Photo: Minh K Tran | Shutterstock
This all creates a huge problem: Vietnam’s airports just can’t keep up. Nội Bài International Airport (HAN) in the capital, Hanoi, was designed for 10 million annual passengers and currently serves 30 million. Down south, the larger Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport (SGN) in Ho Chi Minh City has a capacity of 30 million annually. It surpassed that mark well over a decade ago and is expected to reach 150% of capacity this year.
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With Vietnam projected to be one of the top 10 countries for total passenger traffic by the middle of the century, it is well past time for an airport infrastructure upgrade. Hanoi is currently working on plans for a second airport, but it is in Ho Chi Minh City that the new ‘Jewel of Southeast Asia’ is taking shape: The $20 billion Long Thanh International Airport. Let’s look at five key facts to get up to speed on what is set to become one of the world’s new mega hubs.
Photo: Airbus
1 It will be the largest airport in Vietnam
And one of the largest in the world
Long Thanh is currently being constructed about 40 kilometers east of the city center on a massive site of about 100 square kilometers (40 sq miles), making it more than ten times the size of the current facility at SGN. Once all phases are completed, the airport will have four parallel runways, each 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) long, and four separate terminals, each with four floors and a total floor space of over 400,000 square meters (4.3 million sq feet).
Photo: Parametric Architecture
The completed facility will be able to serve over 100 million passengers annually, more than double the current traffic into the existing airport at Tân Sơn Nhất. Critically, for the most populous city in a nation that has just surpassed 100 million people and is adding 1 million every year, it has plenty of space to grow in terms of adding new terminals and runways.
Photo: Parametric Architecture
2 It is replacing a 100-year-old facility
A small colonial airfield turned large military base
The existing Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport dates back nearly a century to a small airfield with an unpaved runway constructed by the French colonial government. By the mid-1950s, a 7,200-foot runway had been built, and it was South Vietnam’s principal international gateway for what was then called Saigon. During the Vietnam War, the facility became one of the busiest military airbases in the world. Continental Airlines operated over 30 Boeing 707 military charters weekly to and from the airport during 1968–74.
Photo: Continental Archive
With the fall of Saigon, the facility was initially used as a dual-purpose airfield before being converted to the civilian facility it is today. Growth was slow initially, and it only had a single terminal serving less than 8 million passengers in 2007 when an additional international terminal was added. But since then, passenger traffic has surged by more than 500%, and the airport handled 41 million passengers last year, well beyond its capacity and necessitating the construction of Long Thanh.
Photo: Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport
3 It is being built in 3 phases
The first phase is set to open in a little over a year
Site preparation for Long Thanh officially began in January 2021, with construction of the first terminal starting a year later. The airport will be completed over three phases, as follows:
Phase 1 (2021-2026): The initial phase has an estimated cost of $7.8 billion and includes two of the four runways and the first terminal building, as well as land clearance for future phases. Once completed in early 2026, the facility will open with an initial annual capacity of 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo.
The initial phase has an estimated cost of $7.8 billion and includes two of the four runways and the first terminal building, as well as land clearance for future phases. Once completed in early 2026, the facility will open with an initial annual capacity of 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo. Phase 2 (2026-2035): An additional $4.8 billion will be invested to double the passenger capacity to over 50 million passengers, with two more terminals and a third runway added.
An additional $4.8 billion will be invested to double the passenger capacity to over 50 million passengers, with two more terminals and a third runway added. Phase 3 (After 2035): The final phase will cost an estimated $7.2 billion. It will add the fourth runway and fourth terminal building, bringing the total designed capacity to over 100 million passengers and 5 million tons of cargo per year.
Photo: VNA
Once Phase 1 is completed, Long Thanh is expected to operate alongside Tân Sơn Nhất. Vietnam Airlines and most international airlines flying to Vietnam will likely move to the new facility while Tân Sơn Nhất remains in place for low-cost carriers, similar to arrangements in Bangkok. Eventually, though, Long Thanh will have the capacity to replace its older sibling entirely.
Photo: VNA
4 It will be an architectural wonder
Its lotus flower shape symbolizes Vietnam’s culture
Korean architectural company Heerim Architects & Planners, responsible for the cutting-edge Terminal 2 at Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, was chosen as the design firm for Long Thanh. The Korean influence extends further, as Incheon Airport Consortium (a combination of Incheon International Airport Corporation from Korea and PMI Consulting from Vietnam) has been selected to manage the airport operations.
Photo: Parametric Architecture
Heerim has chosen a design for each terminal that is shaped like a lotus flower, the national flower of Vietnam, after extensive feedback from the Vietnamese public and local experts. As Heerim describes it: