Connecting Terminal T3 with T1, T2 of Tan Son Nhat Airport: Is there a need for an internal road in the airport?

nhà ga t3 - Ảnh 1. — Passengers check in at Terminal T3 of Tan Son Nhat Airport (HCMC) - Photo: QUANG DINH

That is the suggestion of Dr. Nguyen Bach Tung - airport planning and design expert - when he said that the difficulty in moving passengers from terminal T3 to T1 and T2 of Tan Son Nhat airport is due to the common characteristics of airports located in the inner city.

Mr. Tung said: The location of T3 terminal is built on an area that was previously a military area with many underground structures, and the site clearance work is very costly. Because in addition to the above construction, there are also underground structures located below and the relocation cost is very large.

* So the possibility of building a separate connecting road between terminals T3, T1 and T2 within Tan Son Nhat airport will be difficult, sir?

- Between T3 and T1 terminals, there are still many military units with very large facilities. Therefore, it is not possible to arrange a road connecting T3 terminal with T1, T2 within Tan Son Nhat airport but still connect by public transport which already has high traffic density.

This has made it difficult for passengers to move from T3 to T1 recently. However, this is a common feature of airports located in the inner city, especially in large cities like Ho Chi Minh City. To reduce these difficulties, Ho Chi Minh City has built an extended Phan Thuc Duyen street connecting Hoang Van Thu Park to Truong Chinh Street to help relieve some of the traffic pressure.

* Why not build an underground road under the aircraft parking lot or an overpass to connect terminals T3 and T1 instead of forcing passengers to go out onto public roads, sir?

- As I said above, military projects have many underground structures, hindering the construction of tunnels. If an underground tunnel is built, it will require a huge amount of construction and maintenance costs, and security and safety work will be very expensive because there are many planes parked above the underground tunnel.

Building an overpass is also not possible because it is impossible to build piers at the aircraft parking lot. To ensure that aircraft with tail heights over 20m operate under the overpass, a very large clearance is required, the bridge span will be too large, so the investment is very expensive. In addition, the problem needs to consider the cost of investing in the tunnel and overpass compared to the number of passengers transferring between T3 and T1 terminals with the total number of passengers traveling by plane.

Therefore, in the coming time, Ho Chi Minh City can review and consider expanding existing public roads to reduce travel time between the two stations. In fact, the distance between the stations is not too far, but due to the high density of inner-city traffic and passengers having to take a detour, it takes a long time to travel between the stations.

* So is it possible to arrange an internal route within Tan Son Nhat airport, running along the aircraft parking lot to connect the terminals, helping passengers travel faster instead of taking public roads?

- In fact, it is possible to build a detour around the parking area to connect terminal T3 with T1, T2 for connecting passengers. With the responsibility of the airport operator, Vietnam Airports Corporation (ACV) and airlines can coordinate with airlines based on the situation to directly pick up/drop off connecting passengers between terminals by specialized buses along the parking area within the airport instead of going out onto public roads.

However, the reality of Tan Son Nhat's high exploitation, the density of vehicles and ground service vehicles traveling in the airport is very high. Therefore, this will be very difficult and it is necessary to study and evaluate the impact on the exploitation activities of Tan Son Nhat airport to have solutions to ensure high security and traffic safety, without affecting the exploitation in the aircraft parking lot.

* Will new, large-scale airports like Long Thanh airport have problems connecting terminals like Tan Son Nhat, sir?

- Long Thanh Airport was newly planned from the beginning with a capacity of 100 million passengers/year. This airport is planned with 4 passenger terminals with close distances and all located within the airport's land area. Therefore, there have been calculations for convenient connection and movement between terminals by internal roads.

The difficulty of Tan Son Nhat is that the airport is located in the middle of the city, and traffic connecting the terminals is shared with public transport. As for Long Thanh airport, the connection between the terminals is by internal roads, not shared with public roads, so there will be no inconvenience like at Tan Son Nhat now.

With new airports, the Government has directed the planning of foreign traffic in sync with the airports.

* Although railway lines are also planned to connect Ho Chi Minh City with Long Thanh airport, they have not yet been built, even though Long Thanh airport is about to be put into operation, sir?

- It is true that investing in Long Thanh international airport with external traffic, especially railway, has a delay because this traffic system has many investors, invested with many capital sources...

According to the plan, Tan Son Nhat airport and Long Thanh airport are connected via metro lines 2 and 6 of Ho Chi Minh City, both connecting to Tan Son Nhat airport and then connecting to the Thu Thiem - Long Thanh railway line to go to Long Thanh airport and vice versa.

The North-South high-speed railway also passes through Long Thanh airport and then to Thu Thiem - Long Thanh. The government is directing relevant units to actively speed up the implementation of these projects to soon solve the traffic problem connecting Long Thanh airport.

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TUAN PHUNG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ket-noi-nha-ga-t3-voi-t1-t2-cua-san-bay-tan-son-nhat-can-co-duong-noi-bo-trong-san-bay-20250814231235511.htm