Airports reaching capacity

Without proper planning, Vietnam’s airports may be plunged into the same chaos that plagues its roads.
Though none of the country’s 22 airports faces congestion quite yet, there is ground for fear.
Just months after being opened, the new international terminal at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport is fast reaching full capacity.
This year it will hit its target of handling 10 million passengers.
Since the early 1990s, the country’s airport infrastructure has kept pace with the demand for air travel.
Local and international flights have increased rapidly with 40 foreign carriers now serving Vietnam.
Domestic carriers Vietnam Airlines and Pacific Airlines have registered significant growth.
Vietnam Airlines carried eight million passengers last year, and Pacific Airlines targets two million this year, double its 2007 figure.
But it is likely that this growth will soon overwhelm available infrastructure, especially at major airports.
At Tan Son Nhat, not only the new terminal but also parking bays may be unable to cope with the increasing demand.
The Southern Airports Authority predicts the airport to face a shortage of aircraft parking space during the evening “rush hour” since Vietnam Airlines and Pacific Airlines plan to buy new planes and park most of them here at night for inspection and maintenance.
Anticipating similar congestion at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport, the government has started to build a new terminal and expand parking space.
Construction is scheduled for completion in 2010.
Upgrade or build anew?
In the context of congestion, the number of runways or airports isnot as important as terminals and parking bays.
Almost a century, Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport operated with just one runway.
When closed down in 1998, the airport was handling its designed capacity of 30 million passengers per year, almost twice as much as Tan Son Nhat which has two runways and a capacity of 18 million passengers.
Tokyo’s Narita international airport also worked with one runway until 2002.
With good planning, Tan Son Nhat and Noi Bai can respectively serve up to 50 million and 70 million passengers per year.
Good planning requires development of all airport parts - terminals stations, parking space and if need be, runways.
The proposed construction of a golf course near Tan Son Nhat, which faces a shortage of parking space, is an example of bad planning.
Even though the south plans to build another international airport, Long Thanh Airport, in Dong Nai Province, it will not find Tan Son Nhat redundant any time soon.
This important airport still needs to be developed as much as possible.
On the large chunk of land meant for the golf course the airport could expand to serve up to 50 million passengers a year.
The proposal to build a new northern airport in Hai Duong Province rather than upgrade the old, now idle, Gia Lam airport is also a bad idea.
The plan proponents object to turning Gia Lam into a functional airport because the nearby Red River dike makes landing dangerous.
In 1989 a plane’s tail hit the dyke while landing.
But the accident was the pilot’s mistake and had nothing to do with the dyke, which had long been in place when the French built the airport.
According to Boeing and Airbus experts, with a small investment, this airport can be turned into a perfect one for short-to-medium range planes.
On the other hand, if the Hai Duong plan materializes, the north will have three large airports – Cat Bi is the third – within just a 50 km distance, unlike anywhere else in the world.
Involve private investments
In most countries, airports are considered businesses and are owned by both the government and private players.
In Vietnam, they are under the government’s complete control, with their managers having no leeway to develop pricing, marketing or other policies.
When Australian budget carrier Jetstar invited Asian airports to bid to become a transit airport for its Australia-Europe flights, Vietnamese airports stayed away as they could not make decisions like other bidders.
The Airway Law enacted in 2006, however, allows diverse ownership of airports.
In the near future, the government will also turn existing airport authorities into airport corporations.
This is an important step forward, but bolder ones are needed to attract investment into airports.
In Thailand, private carrier Bangkok Airways owns three airports - Koh Samui, Trat, and Sukho Thai.
This is an airport business model that Vietnam may be interested in.
Perhaps it is time that the country should consider a private entity building an airport as a good thing for the economy