Long Thanh is the biggest and most expensive airport project in Vietnam's history, built at a cost of VND336.63 trillion (US$12.8 billion).
Sitting about 40 km east of Ho Chi Minh City, it is built first to relieve the chronically overcrowded Tan Son Nhat, which has run for years beyond its designed capacity.
The Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), the state operator building Long Thanh, has said it hopes the airport will grow into a regional transit hub able to rival the established gateways in Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, reclaiming the long-haul connecting traffic that now flows through those hubs rather than Vietnam.
Long Thanh opens with capacity for 25 million passengers a year and reaches its full 100-million design ceiling only in later phases still years away. The target will make it surpass Singapore's Changi, ranked the world's best airport which handled a record 69.98 million passengers in 2025 and is expanding toward 140 million.
ACV has submitted a plan to split flights between Long Thanh and Tan Son Nhat by region and route distance.
