Vietnam: contract signed to start feasibility study for Long Thanh airport

The Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) on June 2 signed a contract with a joint venture comprising of firms from Japan, France and Vietnam (JFV) for consultancy services and the feasibility study for the first phase of Long Thanh International Airport project.

The feasibility study will be carried out from June 2018 to June 2019 and it will be assessed before submitted to the National Assembly for review in October 2019.

The ACV is preparing all required resources and taking necessary steps for the construction of the airport to be started at the end of 2020, he noted. “The airport will be completed and put into use in 2025 at the latest.”

In March, the Ministry of Transport selected the lotus design developed by Heerim Architects and Planners from the Republic of Korea for the project.

The JFV joint venture gathers leading consulting and design firms with years of experiences in the airport construction industry, including Japan Airport Consultants (JAC) which provided design and construction supervision services for the expansion of Tan Son Nhat and Noi Bai International Airports, ADP Ingénierie from France, Nippon Koei and Oriental Consultants Global from Japan, and Airport Design and Construction Consultancy (ADCC) and Transport Engineering Design (TEDI) from Vietnam.

The Long Thanh International Airport has a total area of more than 5,580 hectares, spreading cross six communes in Long Thanh District, the southern province of Dong Nai. It is set to have a total investment of 336.63 trillion VND (14.8 billion USD), with construction divided into three phases.

In the first phase, a runway and one passenger terminal along with other supporting works will be built to serve 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo each year. This phase is hoped to be finished by 2025.

In the second phase, one more runway and another passenger terminal will be constructed to serve 50 million passengers and 1.5 million tonnes of cargo a year.

After the third phase expansion, the airport will be able serve 100 million passengers and 5 million tonnes of cargo each year.

Source: Vietnam News Agency (VNA)

Europe’s airports report passengers up 5% during April

European airport trade association ACI EUROPE today releases its traffic report for April 2018, during which average passenger traffic in geographical Europe grew by +5% compared with the same month last year.

As has occurred in previous months, the non-EU market led the growth dynamic, holding fast at +10.4%, on the back of Turkish airports increasing their passenger traffic by an impressive +13.9%. Gains were especially strong at airports in Georgia (+30.5%), Ukraine (+20.4%) as well as in the smaller markets of FYROM (+17.3%), Montenegro (+15.5%) and Albania (+11.5%).

Meanwhile, passenger traffic growth in the EU market increased by +3.4% – a notable deceleration compared with earlier months (Q1: +6.2%). This was mainly due to the combination of labour disruptions, the continued impact of the bankrupticies of Monarch and Air Berlin, stronger tourism demand to Turkey and Northern Africa impacting some EU leisure airports – as well as the Easter holiday period starting earlier (in March) when compared to last year.

Airports in the Eastern and Southern parts of the bloc along with Finland and Luxembourg significantly outperformed this average. Conversely, airports in the UK, France and Germany posted the weakest results. Accordingly, the following capital city airports all registered double-digit growth in passenger traffic: Tallinn (+32.4%), Bratislava (+26.9%), Ljubljana (+19.4%), Riga (+16.3%), Vilnius (+15.3%), Warsaw (+14.8%), Athens (13.7%), Budapest (+13.6%), Malta (+11.4%), Helsinki (+11.9%) and Luxembourg (+11.7%).

The Majors (top 5 European airports) saw passenger growth weakening to +2.4% compared to +9.6% in Q1. The Air France strikes had an impact on Paris-CDG (-3.5%) – so far, the airport has lost more than 700.000 passengers due to industrial action at the airline. There were also lower passenger numbers at London-Heathrow (-2.2%). Istanbul-Atatürk (+10.7%) kept posting the best performance amongst the league, followed by Frankfurt (+5.8%) and Amsterdam-Schiphol (+3.0%).

Overall, passenger growth was the most dynamic at smaller & regional airports (with less than 5 mppa: +7.6%), with examples including: Batumi (+63.3%), Rostov (+21.3%), Bodrum (+20.7%) and Kristiansund (+12.6%) in the non EU market, as well as Bourgas (+135.9%), Kefallinia (+78.6%), Poznan (+43.1%), Corfou (+38.2%), Ostend (+30.8%), Turku (+26.5%), Clermont- Ferrand (+28.6%), La Rochelle (+21.9%), Memmingerberg (+21.9%), Linz (+20.4%), Wroclaw (+17.2%), Genova (+15.8%) and Paphos (+15.2%) in the EU.

The airports that reported the highest increases in passenger traffic during April 2018 (compared with April 2017) are as follows:

GROUP 1: Antalya AYT (+18.7%), Moscow SVO (+14.8%), Istanbul SAW (+11.7%), Istanbul IST (+10.7%) and Lisbon (+9.1%)

GROUP 2: Ankara (+30.1%), Kiev (+21.8%), Moscow VKO (+19.4%), Warsaw WAW (+14.8%) and Athens (+13.7%)

GROUP 3: Naples (+25.8%), Seville (+22.5%), Krakow (+19.2%), Valencia (+18.7%) and Riga (+16.3%)

GROUP 4: Foggia (+169.7%), Bourgas (+135.9%), Kefallinia (+78.6%), Batumi (+63.3%) and Poznan (+43.1%)

Canadá: Thunder Bay airport renovations heading toward completion

Thunder Bay airport renovations heading toward completion
Larger departure lounge, food service upgrades, security enhancements to be complete by July 1

Renovations at the passenger terminal include a larger departure lounge, a bigger security screening area and better food service amenities.

The passenger terminal at Thunder Bay International Airport is undergoing its first major renovation since its 1994 opening.

The available space for food services was way too small. Significant changes and new offerings are in store although he wouldn’t reveal any of those details.

What’s prompted the changes is growing passenger volume flowing through the northwestern Ontario facility, buttressed by the resurgence of the mining and mineral exploration industry, the public sector and post-secondary institutions, and Americans from Minnesota and Wisconsin who find it more affordable and faster to fly out of Thunder Bay to European destinations.

The terminal handled more than 844,627 passengers in 2017, up 4.6 per cent from the previous year, making it one of Ontario’s busiest airports behind Toronto’s two airports – Pearson International and Billy Bishop – and Ottawa MacDonald-Cartier.

The nature of international traffic in and out of Thunder Bay has also changed. Years ago, it consisted of five-day-a-week propeller aircraft flight to Minneapolis.

Today, they’re processing hundreds heading south aboard charters to vacation hotspots.

Source: Northern Ontario Business

Indonesia’s Semarang airport inaugurates new terminal

Semarang’s Ahmad Yani International airport inaugurated a new passenger terminal on 7 June.

The 58,652m2 terminal, is capable of handling up to 6.9 million passengers annually. Its apron meanwhile can hold 12 aircraft simultaneously, says the airport’s operator Angkasa Pura I (AP I).

The new facility replaces the previous 6,702m2 terminal, which could only handle up to 800,000 passengers per annum, and accommodate up to six narrowbodies and two turboprops at any one time.

Data from AP I shows that the airport handled 4.4 million passengers in 2017, a 10.7% year-on-year increase. Aircraft movements climbed 9.4% to 38,600

FlightGlobal schedules data shows that, in terms of seats offered, Garuda Indonesia is the largest operator out of the airport. Lion Air, Citilink, Batik Air, and Nam Air are the next four largest operators. Semarang is connected to 14 domestic destinations, with Kuala Lumpur and Singapore being the two international destinations.

Source: FlightGlobal