Hanoi (VNA) – Long Thanh International Airport is expected to take on85 percent of international flights running through Tan San Nhat Airport,including those operated by the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines andforeign airlines, according to the Ministry of Transport.

At a meeting on October 22, the Transport Engineering Design Inc. (TEDI),consultant of the Long Thanh airport project, suggested the airport beresponsible for 12 percent of Vietnam Airlines’s domestic flights connecting HoChi Minh City and Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang city.

Other airlines like Vietjet Air, Jetstar Pacific, Bamboo Airways and VietnamAir Services Company (Vasco) will only operate at Tan Son Nhat InternationalAirport, it said.

The Airports Corporation ofVietnam (ACV) on June 2 signed a contract with a joint venture comprising firmsfrom Japan, France and Vietnam (JFV), for consultancy services and afeasibility study for the first phase of Long Thanh International Airportproject.

The JFV joint venture gathers top consultingand design firms with years of experience in the airport construction industry,including Japan Airport Consultants (JAC), ADP Ingénierie from France, NipponKoei and Oriental Consultants Global from Japan and Airport Design andConstruction Consultancy (ADCC) and Transport Engineering Design (TEDI) fromVietnam.

The feasibility study is carried out from June2018 to June 2019 and will be submitted to the National Assembly for review inOctober 2019, said ACV Chairman of the Board Lai Xuan Thanh at the signingceremony.

The ACV is preparing for the construction ofthe airport to begin at the end of 2020, he noted. “The airport will becompleted and put into use in 2025 at the latest.”

In March, the Ministry of Transport selectedthe lotus design developed by Heerim Architects and Planners from the Republicof Korea for the project.

The proposed Long Thanh International Airporthas a total area of more than 5,580 hectares in Long Thanh District, thesouthern province of Dong Nai. It is set to have total investment of 336.63trillion VND (14.8 billion USD), with construction divided into three phases.

In the first phase, a runway and a passengerterminal along with other supporting works will be built to serve 25 millionpassengers and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo each year. This phase is hoped to befinished by 2025.

In the second phase (by 2035), one more runwayand another passenger terminal will be constructed to serve 50 millionpassengers and 1.5 million tonnes of cargo a year.

After the third phase expansion (post 2035),the airport is hoped to be able serve 100 million passengers and 5 milliontonnes of cargo each year.-VNA