Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (fourth from left) and delegates perform the ground-breaking ritual (Photo: VNA) HCM City, (VNA) — Constructionof the third passenger terminal at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho ChiMinh City began on December 24.
Attending the ground-breaking ceremony for theproject, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said transport infrastructuredevelopment, including freight transport infrastructure, is one of the threestrategic breakthroughs for the country’s sustainable socio-economicdevelopment.
“The diversification of modes of transport is animportant factor to boost the improvement of the transportation network,” hesaid.
The T3 terminal project will contribute topromoting socio-economic development, and ensure security and defenceof HCM City and the southern region.
The State-owned Airports Corporation of Vietnamis carrying out the work at a cost of nearly 11 trillion VND (463.2 million USD).
The construction is expected to take 37 months.
The number of passengers going through Tan SonNhat airport has surged in recent years to nearly double its designed capacity.
The airport has two terminals now, with T1serving domestic flights and T2 handling international flights. T1 can serve upto 15 million passengers a year and T2, 10 million.
The airport was designed to handle 25 millionpassengers a year by 2020, but it has been receiving almost 40 million a yearsince 2017.
Once completed, T3 will handle domestic flightsand up to 20 million passengers annually.
With the COVID pandemic ending and the economyshowing strong recovery, passenger numbers have surged again as aviation andtourism recover.
This has again caused overcrowding at majorairports in the country such as Tan Son Nhat and Noi Bai in Hanoi./.
VNA
