The merging of three airports corporations, including: Northern Airports Corporation, Central Airports Corporation and Southern Airports Corporation into Vietnam Airports Corporation aims at concentrating resources, accelerating airline infrastructure improvement, creating favourable conditions for airlines to operate effectively, attracting investors, tourists and boosting development of other industries, among which is airline industry.
Mr Lai Xuan Thanh, Deputy Head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, says that “The merging of three airports corporations into Vietnam Airports Corporation (VAC) is to focus resources, accelerate development of airport infrastructure, attracting and creating favourable conditions, improving serving quality of airlines.
Airports are located along three regions of Vietnam. Each locality has its own favourable location and advantages for business operation. Rational and standard investment as regulated by the ICAO is of great necessity in order to improve capability and quality of customer serving as well as facilitate operation of Vietnam’s airlines and international airlines having flights to Vietnam…
Investing in construction of airports and accompanied facilities asks for a huge budget. For instance, total investment capital for construction of Phu Quoc airport on an area of 905 hectares exceeds VND16,200 billion.
Currently, major works are being executed. This airport aims at meeting the demand of developing Phu Quoc into a destination for international tourists.
One of the difficulties for the project lies in slow allocation of budget. An Thoi – Duong Dong road which leads to the airport needs VND338 billion. So far, only VND200 billion has been allocated. The progress, therefore, cannot be quick.
The above example shows that if the project is under VAC, the scenario may be different when it can receive more assistance from VAC. Or in the case of Da Nang airport, without assistance from VAC, the time to put it into operation may be delayed. Supporting airports in the Central and Northern regions is of extreme importance and decisive to opportunities these regions can grasp in economic development.
Capability division among regional airports slows development process of general airport system. Therefore, the establishment of VAC aims at meeting the aforesaid demand.
Another issue which needs addressing is the necessity to provide consultancy to the Government on airport construction projects in different localities nationwide. Obvious objectives and investment efficiency need to be provided for such projects.
Fragmented investment weakens the capability to receive guests of major airports in each region and reduces investment capital which might be allocated to such key airports.
Also according to Mr Lai Xuan Thanh, of the three airports corporations, Central Airports Corporation is assessed to have poor resources (in terms of capital, infrastructure system, capability, personnel, technology and equipment, etc.). However, the Central region is being a major area which needs big investment in its airport infrastructure so as to attract investors and tourists as well as to boost growth of other economic sectors.
Khanh Hoa province can be taken as a typical example. It is an appealing tourist destination. A lot of international airlines want to connect flights to Cam Ranh Airport. To meet such demand, it is necessary that Cam Ranh Airport be invested, upgraded and expanded. Unfortunately, its administrative unit, Central Airports Corporation, does not have adequate capability.
As such, the merging of the three airports corporations into Vietnam Airports Corporation will gather good resources and thereby facilitates investments in major areas like the Central region, in general and Cam Ranh, in particular…
SGGP
Vietnamese
