Its passenger traffic is expected to grow by 7.8 percent annually until 2022, according to the Airport Council International (ACI), a non-profit organization representing the world’s airports.
The rapid growth is being driven by Vietnam’s arrival as a hot global tourism destination, it said.
The number of foreign arrivals grew by 19.9 percent last year to a record 15.5 million, according to the General Statistics Office. Of them, 12.5 million came by air, up 14.4 percent year-on-year.
The rest of the top 10 are India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, and Malaysia.
However, the sharp rise in the number of air passengers within and to Vietnam has put enormous strain on Tan Son Nhat and Noi Bai, the country’s two major international airports.
Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat, for instance, now receives 32 million passengers a year, far above its designed capacity of 25 million.
The government is working on the expansion of the two airports and construction of a giant airport in Long Thanh in Dong Nai Province, 40 km east of HCMC.
The airport is planned to be built in three phases over three decades with a capacity of 25 million passengers a year by 2025 and 100 million by 2050.
Construction should begin next year with private funding prioritized, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung said at a meeting last month.
A record 106 million passengers passed through Vietnamese airports last year, an increase of 12.9 percent from the previous year.