In July 2024, the People's Committee of Khanh Hoa province submitted a report to the Ministry of Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam on the Van Phong Airport planning project for the period 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050.
The location of Van Phong Airport was studied in Van Thang commune, Van Ninh district (North Van Phong). The project implementation area is about 65km from Nha Trang City, about 101km from Cam Ranh international airport to the south and about 49km from Tuy Hoa airport to the north.
The total planned area of Van Phong airport is about more than 497 hectares. The proposed airport planning area is located entirely on coastal waters, with no population, protected forests, mangrove forests, historical relics, and no planning for boat anchoring or storm shelters.
Therefore, the construction implementation is convenient for compensation and site clearance, without affecting people's houses and existing works.
In the first phase, Van Phong airport will be invested with a capacity of 1.5 million passengers/year, according to ICAO design standards level 4E and military airport level I. Takeoff and landing runway Northeast axis - Southwest is 3,050m long, expected airport elevation +5.00m. Implementation time is from 2023 - 2029.
Khanh Hoa province has proposed 3 investment options for Van Phong airport according to the public-private partnership (PPP) method.
Accordingly, in option 1, the State carries out relocation support. PPP investors invest in complete construction of airport infrastructure.
For option 2, PPP investors invest in a number of essential projects including the construction of passenger terminals, aircraft aprons, and traffic infrastructure. State budget investment in the remaining items includes airport leveling; construction of runways and taxiway systems; Construction of works to ensure flight operations.
The final option is the State budget (Central budget and local budget) to carry out relocation support; Invest in projects to ensure flight operations; Partially support the leveling work of the airport area.
PPP investors invest in the remaining items, including leveling the civil aviation area; construction of airports and civil aviation areas; connected transportation system.
Based on analysis and evaluation, in order to ensure reasonableness and feasibility, option 3 is proposed to be researched and implemented by Khanh Hoa province.
With the proposed scale as above, the preliminary total investment in building Van Phong airport in the first phase is about 7,892 billion VND (excluding loan interest), meeting the needs of serving 1,500,000 passengers/year, equivalent to 600 passengers/peak hour.
In particular, the State budget capital is proposed to support about 2,150 billion VND to implement investment projects in works to ensure flight operations; Partially support the leveling work of the airport area.
The BOT investment capital is about 5,742 billion VND including equity and commercial loans mobilized by investors. The expected payback period is about 47 years.
