A section of the Noi Bai Airport’s S3 taxiway is dented. (Photo: Noi Bai Airport).

The Minister of Transport and Chairman of the State Capital Management Committee will be individually held responsible for this task, according to a recent government resolution.

The resolution was passed in response to a Ministry of Transport report in early September, which showed serious degradation of runways systems at Vietnam’s two biggest airports in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The report said there were serious cracks, factures, subsidence and material falling off from the expansion joints between concrete slabs as a result of the runways being overused far beyond their designed capacity.

Based on these findings, the Transport Ministry had requested the Prime Minister to consider allocating some 10 percent of the medium-term public airport infrastructure investment plan for 2016-2020 for repairs, saying this was essential to guarantee flight safety.

The ministry has estimated the runway and taxiway renovation costs for both airports at around VND4.5 trillion ($195 million).

Inspections of the Noi Bai International Airport last month found two tire marks, each 1-meter wide, on one major runway. Potholes 30-50 cm wide and some subsidence was also found on a parallel runway.

The runways at Tan Son Nhat are also congested and not equipped to handle new planes that are getting larger and heavier, the ACV said in an August report.

Tan Son Nhat, the largest airport in Vietnam, received 38.5 million people last year, which was 1.5 times higher than its intended capacity of 25 million people per year, while Noi Bai handled 24 million last year compared to design capacity of 21 million, several reports have said.

Cre: Viet Tuan – VnExpress

Nguyen Xuan Nghia – COMM