The capacity of 21 Vietnamese airports is only equal to one airport in Malaysia or Singapore.

At the Vietnam Tourism Summit on the afternoon of December 5, Mr. Luong Hoai Nam, Deputy General Director of Vietstar Airlines, said that the issue of airport infrastructure is a huge challenge, a bottleneck that creates a bottleneck for tourism development.

He said that since 1975, Vietnam has only completely rebuilt and put into operation Phu Quoc airport and most recently Van Don airport. The rest were mostly upgraded from military airports on limited land funds, making the possibility of expansion very limited.

Currently, Vietnam has 21 airports, while Thailand has 38. The capacity of all Vietnamese airports is 75 million passengers per year, which, according to him, is only one-third of Thailand's. He also compared the capacity of all Vietnamese airports combined to the largest airport in Bangkok (Thailand), Changi (Singapore) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).

The capacity of 21 Vietnamese airports is only equal to one airport in Malaysia or Singapore.

Besides, he also pointed out the overloaded state of Vietnam's aviation infrastructure. The capacity is 75 million passengers per year, but in reality last year, the airports served 95 million and this year it is expected to be 105 million. Tan Son Nhat airport alone has the largest capacity of 25 million passengers and has been overloaded for many years but the upgrade is very slow.

"Let's imagine a house designed for 25 people, but last year there were 36 people living there and this year there are expected to be 40 people. The scene of passengers dragging suitcases and running into the airport because of traffic jams has happened many times and has been published in the domestic and foreign press, damaging the image of our country's aviation industry and Vietnam's tourist destinations," he said.

Mr. Nam also proposed solutions to improve the quality of airport infrastructure. The key issue is to encourage and facilitate the private sector to build new terminals and airports, as they did with Van Don airport.

Refining aviation infrastructure, including allowing private participation, is also one of the four important proposals that Mr. Ngo Minh Duc, Chairman of HG Joint Stock Company, put forward to develop Vietnam's tourism.

Also related to the story of aviation development, on the sidelines of the event, Mr. Tran Trong Kien, Chairman of the Tourism Advisory Board (TAB), General Director of Thien Minh Group also said that the growth demand of the aviation industry still has a lot of room. Compared to some highly developed tourism countries such as Thailand, the number of airlines in Vietnam is currently only one-third, not to mention the quality of service. Therefore, he said that Vietnam should create opportunities to develop more new airlines.

He also said that Vietnam currently keeps the foreign ownership ratio in aviation enterprises relatively low compared to other countries in the region, only about 30%. While some countries have increased it to 100% such as Cambodia or Myanmar at 49%. According to him, this ratio should be expanded to create opportunities for foreign investors to participate in the market.