Travelers in southern Vietnam will start flying from Long Thanh International Airport at midnight on December 24, when the 5,000-hectare hub east of Ho Chi Minh City begins commercial operations with up to 366 flights a week and room for 25 million passengers a year.
The date was set by the Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV), the state company building the airport, in a notice sent to the People’s Committee of Dong Nai, the city where the airport sits, according to the Vietnam News Agency.
Commercial operations are scheduled to begin at 0:00 on December 24, 2026. ACV asked the city to direct local agencies to help it finish preparations so the launch runs smoothly and safely.
Long Thanh is Vietnam’s largest airport by area. It covers about 5,000 hectares in Dong Nai, roughly 40 kilometers east of Ho Chi Minh City, VnExpress reports.
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322 domestic and 44 international flights a week
In its first phase of operation, the airport is expected to handle up to 366 flights per week, according to the Vietnam News Agency.
Of that total, 322 are domestic flights and 44 are international services. Flight allocations are still being worked out by regulators, airport operators and airlines.
The planning takes into account slot coordination and the schedules of both Long Thanh and Tan Son Nhat, the current international airport inside Ho Chi Minh City, along with international air service agreements.
Who will fly from day one
Domestic airlines will move into the new airport in stages. Vietnam Airlines is expected to fly the Long Thanh to Hanoi route and several international services.
Vietjet Air plans domestic routes linking Long Thanh with major economic and tourism centers across the country, the Vietnam News Agency reports.
Many international airlines have also expressed interest in operating at Long Thanh, ACV said. The corporation did not name them in the notice described by the state media.
From 25 million to 100 million passengers
Long Thanh will open with capacity for 25 million passengers a year. That is only the first phase of a project planned in three stages.
Once all phases are complete, the airport is designed to handle 100 million passengers and 5 million tons of cargo a year, according to the government’s news portal.
The cost figures vary by source. VnExpress puts the project at VND336.63 trillion, or about US$12.8 billion, the biggest and most expensive airport project in Vietnam’s history. The government portal cites a total investment of around US$16 billion.
A rival for Singapore’s Changi
ACV has said it hopes Long Thanh will grow into a regional transit hub able to compete with Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, VnExpress reported in July.
The goal is to win back long-haul connecting traffic that now flows through those hubs instead of Vietnam. Changi handled a record 69.98 million passengers in 2025 and is expanding toward 140 million, according to VnExpress.
At full capacity, Long Thanh’s 100-million design would put it above Changi’s 2025 traffic, although that ceiling is only reached in later phases that are still years away.
The race to finish the last packages
The opening date comes with a lot of work still underway. ACV said construction of Component Project 3, which covers the essential airport facilities, is about 86% complete by contract value.
Of the 16 main bidding packages, four have been completed and the remaining 12 are being fast-tracked, with most expected to be finished in December 2026, VnEconomy reports.
Some large items still need extra focus, including the internal traffic system, technical infrastructure, the passenger terminal, cargo terminal 1 and parking facilities.
Under the plan, key works are to be completed and accepted by November 2026. Environmental, aviation security and personnel procedures are due by early December.
How flights will move from Tan Son Nhat
A plan submitted by ACV earlier this year, when the target was still December 1, split flights between the two airports by region and route distance, VnExpress reported.
Under that plan, Long Thanh would take all international routes longer than 1,000 kilometers and every cargo flight. Tan Son Nhat would keep shorter international routes flown by narrow-body jets such as the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737.
The handover was designed in three phases tied to airlines’ seasonal schedules. In the first one, through March 27, 2027, Long Thanh would take all long-haul international and cargo flights, about 19% of the area’s international passenger volume.
ACV’s target was to move more than 90% of the area’s international passenger traffic to the new airport by 2027. Domestic flights would stay largely at Tan Son Nhat, with airlines free to pick either airport.
The 40-kilometer problem
Distance is the main worry for passengers. Tan Son Nhat sits inside Ho Chi Minh City, while Long Thanh is about 40 kilometers away, in Dong Nai.
Dong Nai broke ground on July 10 on nearly VND12 trillion, about US$456 million, of new and widened roads linking the airport to highways, expressways, industrial parks and seaports, VnExpress reported.
Another link is the 57.8-kilometer Ben Luc to Long Thanh Expressway, built by Vietnam Expressway Corporation, which ends about 10 kilometers from the airport, according to the Vietnam News Agency.
ACV has also urged the government to speed up the widening of the Ho Chi Minh City to Long Thanh Expressway, the Bien Hoa to Vung Tau Expressway and Ring Road 3.
What the first passengers will find
For the first commercial flight, the core systems have to be complete and tested, including the terminal, runway, apron, power and water, information technology, baggage handling and safety systems.
Airlines will bring routes in gradually, so the first weeks will look very different from the 100-million-passenger airport in the master plan.
Vietnam is not the only country betting on giant new airports, as Dubai’s US$35 billion airport designed for 260 million passengers a year shows. Will Long Thanh be ready to welcome its first commercial passengers on December 24?
