Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Construction
Construction of Tan Son Nhat International Airport
International airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- 1930
- Southeast Asia
Construction
International airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Tan Son Nhat International Airport (IATA: SGN, ICAO: VVTS) is an international airport serving Ho Chi Minh City, the most populous city in Vietnam. It is located in the former Tân Bình district within the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area.
It is the busiest airport in Vietnam, with 32.5 million passengers in 2016, 38.5 million passengers in 2018, and about 41 million passengers in 2023. As of December 2023, it is the 50th-busiest airport in the world, and the fourth-busiest in Southeast Asia. As of April 2025, it has a total capacity of approximately 50 million passengers following the opening of Terminal 3. Previous capacity limits of approximately 30 million passengers had caused constant and increasing traffic and congestion, leading to the construction of another airport in Ho Chi Minh City as an alternative, scheduled to be completed by the first half of 2026.
Of the routes the airport serves, the domestic Ho Chi Minh City–Hanoi route is the busiest in Southeast Asia and the fourth-busiest in the world, serving around 11 million passengers in 2023. Its IATA airport code, SGN, is derived from the city's former name of Saigon.
Tan Son Nhat International Airport has its origins in the early 1920s when the French colonial government constructed a small airport with unpaved runways, known as Tân Sơn Nhứt Airfield near the village of Tan Son Nhut, and was later expanded in 1930s.
Saigon was the eastern terminus of Air Orient and its successor Air France's Asia service in the late 1920s and 1930s, a week-long voyage from London that operated once a week using SPCA Météore 63 flying boats and, from the mid-1930s, Dewoitine D.338 trimotor land planes.
From 1941 to 1945, while Indochina was under Japanese control, French air service was severed and Imperial Japanese Airways connected Saigon to Bangkok and Hanoi, using Mitsubishi MC-20 aircraft.
After the war, Air France resumed the weekly Paris-Saigon route, which took four days with five stops en route; by 1950 the route was served by DC-4s and Constellations, and was a connecting point for onward Air France service to Australia and New Caledonia. Pan American World Airways began DC-4 service to Saigon in May 1953, connecting the airport to Manila and Singapore.
By mid-1956, with U.S. aid, a 7,200-foot (2,190 m) runway had been built; the airfield near Saigon became known as South Vietnam's principal international gateway. During the Vietnam War (or Second Indochina War), Tan Son Nhut Air Base (then using the Southern spelling "Tân Sơn Nhứt") was an important facility for both the U.S. Air Force and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force. Between 1968 and 1974, Tan Son Nhut Airport was one of the busiest military airbases in the world. Pan Am schedules from 1973 show that during the last days of South Vietnam, Boeing 747 service was being operated four times a week to San Francisco via Guam and Manila. Continental Airlines operated up to 30 Boeing 707 military charters per week to and from Tan Son Nhut Airport during the 1968–74 period.
In the final days of the Vietnam War, the FAA banned US passenger flights to and from Vietnam. Pan Am was given permission to operate a final 747 charter from Tan Son Nhut on April 24, 1975, six days before the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces. The 375-seat aircraft, Clipper Unity, carried 463 passengers evacuating Vietnam, including refugees and airline employees, some of whom sat on the floor or in the toilets.
Service at the airport was very limited in the wake of the Vietnam War. As of 1989, the only international carriers at the airport were Aeroflot with a weekly multi-stop Il-86 service from Moscow, Air France with a twice-weekly multi-stop 747 service from Paris, Philippine Airlines with a weekly BAC One-Eleven service from Manila, and Thai Airways International with a twice-weekly 737 service from Bangkok. The Vietnamese national carrier Hang Khong Vietnam served Bangkok, Da Nang, Hanoi, and Manila with Tu-134s.
By the mid-1990s, the airport had nonstop flights to major Asia-Pacific gateways such as Dubai, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Osaka, Seoul, Sydney and Taipei, as well as one-stop service to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Moscow, Paris and Vienna.
In December 2004, United Airlines became the first U.S. airline to fly to Vietnam since the Vietnam War. United suspended Ho Chi Minh City service in 2017 but resumed it in October 2025, operating from Los Angeles with a stop in Hong Kong.
In 2006, Tan Son Nhat International Airport served approximately 8.5 million passengers (compared with 7 million in 2005) with 64,000 aircraft movements. It has recently accounted for nearly two-thirds of the arrivals and departures at Vietnam's international gateway airports. Due to increasing demand (about 15–20% per annum), the airport has been continuously expanded by the Southern Airports Corporation.
In 2010, Tan Son Nhat domestic terminal handled 8 million passengers, its maximum capacity. The airport reached its full capacity of 20 million passengers in 2013, two years earlier than predicted. Both domestic and international terminal are being expanded to meet the increasing demand. In December 2014, expansion for the domestic terminal was finished, boosting the terminal's capacity to 13 million passengers per annum. In September 2017, People's Army of Vietnam ceded 21 hectare of military land in the vicinity of the airport to Airports Corporation of Vietnam for civil use. This gave way for the construction of 21 new aircraft parking spaces, expected to be completed by Tet holidays in 2018. Tan Son Nhat will then have 72 parking spaces for airplanes.
Of the routes the airport serves, the Ho Chi Minh City–Hanoi route is the busiest in Southeast Asia and the seventh busiest in the world, serving 6,769,823 customers in 2017.
In October 2022, the aircraft revetments built by the U.S. were removed to make way for a taxiway. Seven larger ones are set to be constructed as replacement 800 meters away.
Until the opening of the International Terminal in 2007, the domestic terminal was the sole civilian terminal of the airport. The French Indochinese administration built the original terminal. It initially covered an area of 1,800 m2 (19,000 sq ft). Between 1954 and 1975 when the airport quickly became one of the busiest airports in the world, it was expanded 4 more times: in 1956, 1960, 1963 (which was handled by the contractor RMK-BRJ), and 1969. By 1972, the terminal grew to 10,800 m2 (116,000 sq ft) in space with a capacity of 1.5 million passengers a year.
In recent history, after years of constant expansion to meet growing traffic, the terminal's handling capacity increased tenfold to 15 million passengers a year as of 2023. It has a floor area of 40,948 m2 (440,760 sq ft) with 20 boarding gates (4 aerobridge gates and 16 remote gates).
After the opening of Terminal 3, the terminal is solely serving domestic flights for Vietjet Air. Following other carriers' terminal switch, Vietjet moved its landside operations into Departure Hall A, while its former base in Departure Hall B will be converted to a transit hub connecting all passenger terminals.
A new international terminal, constructed by a consortium of four Japanese contractors (KTOM, abbreviation of four contractors' names: Kajima – Taisei – Obayashi – Maeda), opened in December 2007 with an initial designed capacity of 10 million passengers a year. The terminal was funded by Japanese official development assistance at a cost of 219 million USD.
In 2014, the terminal served over 9 million international passengers and a demand of an expansion to the terminal was in sight. Plan for a 109 million-USD expansion of the international terminal was approved in August 2014. The first phase of an urgent expansion to the terminal was finished in December 2016 with the addition of 2 new jet bridges and other facilities. Upon the completion of phase two in 2018, the terminal has a floor area of 115,834 m2 (1,246,830 sq ft) and 26 boarding gates, and can handle 13 million passengers annually.
There are a total of seven passenger lounges situated in the International Terminal: Apricot Business Lounge, Jasmine Halal, Lotus Lounge 1 and 2, Le Saigonnais, Orchid Lounge, and Rose Business Lounge.
A new passenger terminal for the airport broke ground on 24 December 2022. The new terminal includes 27 gates (13 jetbridges and 14 remote gates) for an annual handling capacity of 20 million passengers. The terminal building has a total floor area of 112,500 m2 (1,211,000 sq ft), and is connected with new 130,000 m2 (1,400,000 sq ft) non-aviation services and parking complex by footbridges. The project has a budget of 10,986 billion VND (US$467.6 million) and was projected to be completed by the end of 2024, but opened in April 2025. The terminal will serve domestic flights to support the current domestic terminal. On 16 April 2025, the first commercial flight from Terminal 3 was operated by Vietnam Airlines, and began trial operations on 17 April and formal operations on 30 April. In August 2025, Pacific Airlines, VASCO, Bamboo Airways, and Vietravel Airlines moved their domestic operations to Terminal 3.
Tan Son Nhat Airport currently has three cargo terminals. Two of them (Air Freight Terminal 1 and 2) are operated by Tan Son Nhat Cargo Services (TCS) and the other one is operated by Saigon Cargo Services Corporation (SCSC). These facilities have a handling capacity of 700,000 tonnes of cargo per year combined.
TCS's Air Freight Terminal 1 was the first cargo terminal at the airport. It was inaugurated on 1 January 1997. In May 2012, Air Freight Terminal 2 was opened after 20 months of construction. The latter was built at a cost of $15 million and covers an area of 13,700 m2 (147,000 sq ft).
The Prime Minister of Vietnam, by Decision 1646/TTg-NN, has approved the addition of 40 hectares (99 acres) of the adjacent area to extend the apron and to build a cargo terminal to handle the rapid increase of passenger (expected to reach 17 million in 2010, compared to 7 million and 8.5 million in 2005 and 2006 respectively) and cargo volume at the airport.
The SCSC cargo terminal was constructed from March 2009 to December 2010 at a cost of $50 million. The cargo handling area consists of a 26,670 m2 (287,100 sq ft) cargo terminal, 52,421 m2 (564,250 sq ft) of apron area, and 64,000 m2 (690,000 sq ft) of warehouse and other facilities.
The airport has two parallel runways, namely 07L/25R, and 07R/25L. Since the runways are only 365 meters apart, they are operated dependently. Due to the maximum processing capacity of the passenger terminals (about 3,600 passengers/hour), the runway system's capacity is capped at 44 operations per hour. During peak seasons such as Tết, the hourly limit is extended to 48 operations.
The original air traffic control tower is situated between present-day taxiway Y1 and S5. It was originally built in 1949 before being rebuilt in 1959. During the Tet Offensive in 1968, the tower was damaged by a rocket and a new tower was built in June 1969.
A new 70-meter (230-feet) tall air control tower was put into use in 2013.
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
2022
2023
2024
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
2020
2021
2022
2023
Source: Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Tan Son Nhat International Airport provides both landside and airside shuttle services to facilitate passenger transfers between its terminals. While Terminals 1 and 2 are adjacent to each other, Terminal 3 is located at a greater distance.
On the landside, a free shuttle bus operates between all three terminals at 15-minute intervals from 04:30 to 00:30. The designated pick-up and drop-off points are:
On the airside, a dedicated shuttle bus operates for transit passengers from Terminal 3 to Gate A2 in Terminal 1. This service runs every 20 minutes from 07:00 to 03:00. From Gate A2, passengers can proceed to domestic departure gates within Terminal 1 or walk directly to Terminal 2 for international departures, as the two terminals are connected airside. There is no return airside service from Terminal 1 or 2 to Terminal 3; passengers arriving at these terminals must exit to the landside area to reach Terminal 3.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Tan Son Nhat International Airport”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.