Vietnam set to bring Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport expansion back to front burner

The government is considering the expansion of Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport to handle 80-100 million passengers a year by 2050.
Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung has just instructed the Ministry of Transport to review the airport expansion plan drafted years ago.

Noi Bai is one of Vietnam’s most important airports and an international gateway to the north, but is overloaded, he said. The airport has a capacity of 25 million passengers and last year served 23 million.

He told the ministry to work with consultancies to finalize plans for the development of the airport until 2030 with a vision to 2050.

It should also collaborate with city authorities to come up with a plan for land acquisition and resettlement of people, he added.

The plan sought to increase the airport’s capacity to 50 million by 2030 and 80-100 million by 2050.

It was estimated to totally cost $5.5 billion, $3.5 billion for construction and $2 billion for land acquisition and resettlement of affected people.

The funding for the review of any changes to the plan will come from non-refundable official development assistance from France.

The transport ministry last month ordered repairs to the airport to fix cracks in the runway and material falling off between concrete slabs.

In August airport operator Airports Corporation of Vietnam said it plans to upgrade 16 of the 21 civilian airports in the country, including Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat in HCMC.

It estimated a price tag of VND56.7 trillion ($2.4 billion).

Vietnam’s aviation industry has experienced rapid development in recent years.

There were more than 9.4 million air passengers in the first nine months of this year, a 17.4 percent rise year-on-year, according to the General Statistics Office.

Source: VN Express International

Beijing approves massive Changshui International Airport expansion

One of the biggest and busiest airports in China is set to grow much larger. Kunming Changshui International has only been open for six years, but it recently received national approval — and presumably state funding — to increase its ability to handle passengers by nearly 300 percent over the next decade.

Today, Changshui is the country’s sixth busiest airport based on a matrix involving passengers, aircraft ‘movements’ and cargo handled. In 2017, the facility handled 44,727,691 passengers, trailing only Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenzhen, according to statistics compiled by the Civil Aviation Administration.

The newly approved 2018 Changshui Airport Master Plan eyes a day in the not-so-distant future when the facility will see passenger traffic exceed 120 million people each year. In order to meet such demand, Yunnan province’s main travel hub will add additional 4,000-meter runways to augment the two that already exist.

A previous expansion plan first outlined in 2015 — a mere three years after Changshui first opened — called for the construction of a second major terminal and two extra runways. Already underway, that scheme has since been updated and was given the green light by Beijing in mid-October of this year. No verifiable cost estimates for the expansion have yet been made public.

Under the 2018 Master Plan, Changshui’s future runway count has risen to five and two ‘satellite facilities’ are scheduled for construction to supplement terminals 1 and 2. Work on Terminal 2 broke ground in 2015, and is expected to be completed sometime around 2020, as is at least one of the auxiliary runways. All construction detailed in the 2018 Master Plan will reportedly be finished by 2030.

Changshui was opened in 2012 at a cost of 23 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion) as a replacement for Kunming’s outdated and inadequate Wujiaba Airport. At that time, the facility was included in the ‘Go West’ development program (西部大开发), an enormous domestic economic policy designed to boost development in western China. Today, that strategy has been subsumed by the country’s Belt and Road Initiative.

It has long been rumored that Kunming would land contracts for an ever-growing number of intercontinental flights. And while connectivity between Yunnan and the countries of South and Southeast Asia have jumped significantly since 2012, consistent direct links to Europe and North America have not been so quick to materialize. With the addition of even more airstrips built to handle the world’s largest passenger planes, Changshui may finally be on its way.

Source: Go Kunming

UPDATE. Slovakia will try to rent out Bratislava Airport

Transport Minister Árpád Érsek proposes renting Bratislava airport to a concessionaire for 30 years, the SITA newswire wrote.

It cited a draft public-private partnership project for selecting a concessionaire for the operation of M.R. Štefánik Airport in Bratislava (BTS), which his department submitted on October 26 for a fast-tracked interdepartmental review.

The expedited review should be closed as early as on November 2, as the Ministry claims, there is an urgent need to carry out further actions resulting from the project as well as the entire procedure of selecting a concessionaire. According to the proposed schedule, the concession agreement could come into force as soon as 2021.

The documents ultimately find a strategic partner to be the best solution, with the State acquiring an extra €61 million, and a higher residential value for BTS when it is returned.

The planned timeline
The conclusion of the concession is expected by June 2020, after a public tender. Its subject should be the operation, maintenance and development of Bratislava airport, while the runways and the connected infrastructure should remain in the ownership of BTS, according to Sme.

“By implementing the project of public-private-partnership in the form of granting a concession, the long-term sustainable development of M. R. Štefánik Airport will be secured,” the ministry predicts, as cited by Sme. “The precondition is that the strategic partner improves the competitive position of BTS in the region and increases the offer and quality of the airport services.

Source: The Slovak Spectator

Mexicanos votan contra la construcción de un nuevo aeropuerto junto a la capital del país

747.000 mexicanos, o casi el 70 % del número total de participantes, han votado en contra de la construcción de un nuevo y costoso aeropuerto para la Ciudad de México, con sede en Texcoco, en una consulta popular no oficial llevada a cabo entre el 25 y el 28 de octubre. Algo más de 311.000 mexicanos han apoyado la continuación de las obras, que ya están en curso, informan medios locales.

La votación fue organizada por la Fundación Arturo Rosenblueth, cuyo gerente, Enrique Calderón, ha anunciado estas cifras preliminares desde el cuartel del gabinete de transición del presidente electo de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. El propio ganador de las recientes elecciones presidenciales ha prometido respetar el resultado de la votación.

La participación popular, sin embargo, fue baja: solo votaron 1.058.000 personas, cuando 130 millones tenían derecho a voto.

Gana Santa Lucía

Las obras en Texcoco ya se están realizando desde el 2015. El existente Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez (AICM) había comenzado a registrar sobresaturación años antes de esa fecha. Su capacidad es de 32 millones de pasajeros al año, mientras que recibe actualmente cerca de 44 millones.

Los proyectos alternativos que estimaron los votantes son una ampliación del AICM, englobando dos pistas de despegue y aterrizaje del aeródromo militar de Santa Lucía, y el desarrollo del también existente aeropuerto de la ciudad de Toluca.

Mientras que menos de un 30 % de los participantes optaron por las obras ya en curso, el restó se mostró a favor del nuevo proyecto en Santa Lucía.

Fuente: Actualidad RT