Vietnam approves plans for cargo expansion at SGN

Today, the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport approved the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) – which operates 21 of the country’s airports – to invest in the expansion plan for Tan Son Nhat Airport (SGN), designed by French airport operator Groupe ADP’s consulting subsidiary, ADP Ingénierie (ADP-I).

Alongside a third passenger terminal and parking area south of existing airport buildings, ADP-I’s designs call for construction of a new cargo terminal and an MRO station to the airport’s north. The total expansion is projected to cost over $1.3 billion, excluding site clearance costs, according to Vietnam Net.

The new cargo and MRO buildings will be built on a 157-hectare piece of land north of the airport that is currently occupied by a golf course, and will ultimately have capacity for five million tonnes of cargo, according to local news VN Express. Further details regarding the cargo terminal’s designs are yet to be determined.

The new extension project is necessary in enabling anticipated growth in cargo volumes at SGN, which would otherwise be inhibited by its current flight congestion and rapidly-shrinking space for cargo.

Last year, Saigon Cargo Service Corporation – a ground handler operating at SGN – deputy managing director Nguyen Thai Son told our sister publication Cargo Facts that it only had limited space left to handle extra cargo while its competitors were already completely full. Nguyen also said at the time that the handling company were expecting an increase in pharmaceutical and perishable traffic to and from Europe and were preparing to handle that through training and pursuit of CEIV-Pharma certification. He also said that there was a need for more freighter aircraft at SGN.

In addition to approving expansion plans at SGN, the government recently approved the construction of the new Long Thanh Airport. The country has also received increased attention from cargo logistics industry providers – last year, JD.com invested in Vietnamese e-commerce platform Tiki, DHL extended same-day delivery service to the country, and sources told our sister publication, Cargo Facts, that Amazon will likely build a warehouse at SGN.

For the expansion of SGN, the Ministry of Transport is responsible for overseeing cooperation between ADP-I and its Vietnamese counterpart, Airport Design and Construction Consultancy (ADCC), in completing adjustments to the expansion plan requiring mechanisms and policies to implement the projects.