Expert: 'Taking land to expand Tan Son Nhat golf course is the best'

Refuting the Minister of Transport's viewpoint, experts presented arguments showing that taking land from the golf course to expand Tan Son Nhat is feasible.

While Minister of Transport Truong Quang Nghia said that "expanding the airport to the North is not feasible", Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thien Tong (aviation engineering expert - former Head of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology) affirmed that this option means taking back 157 hectares currently used as a golf course - is the best option.

According to Mr. Tong, the Ministry of Transport's viewpoint is based on the report of the Aviation Construction Design and Consulting Company ADCC (under the Air Defense - Air Force, Ministry of National Defense). "However, this company is not objective when providing data on costs and implementation time of the expansion plans for Tan Son Nhat airport," said Mr. Tong.

ADCC Company proposed a plan to build a new runway No. 3 in the north of the golf course, 1,800 m away from runway No. 2 (25R/07L); build 2 new terminals and auxiliary works in the golf course area with a total investment of up to 201,350 billion VND over a period of over 15 years; clear 626 hectares of land - including a military zone, golf course and 322 hectares of residential land with about 140,000 households.

"There are exaggerated numbers here to easily lead to impossible conclusions. Why is the distance between two runways 1,800 m while ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) recommends the minimum is only 760 m?", Mr. Tong questioned.

Tan Son Nhat Airport and the 157-hectare golf course (green) inside. Photo: Google maps.

According to Mr. Tong, if golf course land is used to open more terminals, it will increase the capacity to serve passengers in the context of the airport being seriously overloaded. Internal roads can be opened to connect the terminals together. From then on, Truong Son will no longer be the only road to the airport, reducing traffic pressure in this area. People can choose the most convenient entrance to the airport - to the terminal on Tan Son and Quang Trung streets.

"This land can also open more runways, increasing Tan Son Nhat airport's capacity to 80 million passengers per year. I affirm that it is completely feasible," said Mr. Tong.

Aviation experts have proposed a plan to build a third runway on land reclaimed from a golf course - 760 meters away from the existing 3,800-meter runway No. 1. "The length within the existing scope of Tan Son Nhat airport is about 3,000 meters, so the third runway could be about 2,700 meters long without having to clear any households. Therefore, the Ministry of Transport's claim that expanding the airport to the North will cost a lot of money to clear residential land is incorrect," he said.

Associate Professor Tong further explained that Tan Son Nhat currently has two parallel runways with lengths of 3,048 m and 3,800 m, 365 m apart, ensuring safe landing for large aircraft. With the addition of this third runway, the airport is fully capable of safely landing and taking off current popular commercial aircraft with a frequency of over 360,000 flights per year, thereby increasing maximum capacity to 75-95 million passengers per year.

In the future, the third runway can increase to 3,800 m like the first runway when clearing a few dozen hectares towards Truong Chinh and Quang Trung streets.

The 157-hectare golf course at Tan Son Nhat airport has been in operation since 2015. Photo: Manh Tung.

Sharing the same view, Dr. Nguyen Bach Phuc (Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Science, Technology and Management Consulting Association - HASCON) said that the Ministry of Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority said that upgrading the airport to the North would require the release of 500,000 people and 5,000 hectares of land at a cost of up to 9 billion USD, which is incorrect. He affirmed that the plan to take golf course land to expand Tan Son Nhat "does not require the release of a single inch of land from the people".

According to Mr. Phuc, the golf course land in the airport can be used to build 3 more international terminals, each 16 hectares (equal to the existing international terminal); build more parking lots for 85 planes (each parking lot is 1.3 hectares). The total area is exactly equal to the golf course area. Thus, the airport can be upgraded to a capacity of 56 million passengers per year (the international terminal has a capacity of 12 million passengers per year and a domestic terminal has a capacity of 8 million).

Lieutenant Colonel Le Trong Sanh (former Head of Flight Management Department - Tan Son Nhat Airport), just reclaiming the golf course land will solve the congestion in the sky and on the ground for Tan Son Nhat.

In this location, he proposed to build an additional terminal, aircraft parking lot and taxiway from the aircraft to the runway on the land where the existing golf course is being built. At the same time, it is necessary to open two more routes from Truong Chinh and Quang Trung streets to Tan Son Nhat airport.

"This way, the airport's capacity will increase to at least 15 million passengers per year, avoiding the need for planes to wait to land by circling in the air. The earlier a plane lands, the more minutes it saves, minimizing risks in the sky. At the same time, it will limit the congestion currently concentrated on Truong Son Road," said Mr. Sanh.

Previously, participating in the discussion at the 3rd session of the 14th National Assembly on the expansion of Tan Son Nhat airport on June 8, Minister of Transport Truong Quang Nghia said that the plan to expand the airport to the North is completely unfeasible for many reasons: land clearance costs, noise pollution and many other issues.

According to Minister Nghia, the most feasible and economical option chosen to expand Tan Son Nhat is to build an additional T4 terminal with a capacity of 10-15 million passengers, raising the total capacity of the airport to about 40-43 million passengers per year. In this expansion option, the taxiways and aprons are determined to be completed before Tet 2018; the terminal will be completed in 2019. However, by around 2022, Tan Son Nhat will reach its maximum capacity, meaning the airport cannot handle the current passenger growth./.

According to VOV