ACV proposes $100 million investment into Na San Airport

ACV outlined three alternatives to restart Na San Airport

ACV has submitted the pre-feasibility report for the reconstruction of Na San Airport to the Ministry of Transport for appraisal. In the report, ACV proposed three plans for the project. The first one is that the corporation will develop this project from its equity capital. The second one is that the corporation will build the civil aviation zone while the Son La People’s Committee can develop the flight zone and then assign ACV to exploit it. The third one is to mobilise investment from private enterprises under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

According to ACV, the first plan is the most feasible alternative because the corporation has massive experience in this sector. Besides, it can allocate revenue from its existing 22 terminals to offset the operating losses of Na San Airport before it begins to generate profit. Under this scheme, ACV committed to completing the construction within 37 months.

The construction of the plan is estimated at VND2.29 trillion ($99.56 million), VND62.8 billion ($2.73 million) of which will be spent on land clearance, VND1.16 trillion ($50.43 million) on the construction of the flight zone, and VND878.6 trillion ($38.2 million) for the civil aviation zone and other expenditures.

This airport will handle 1 million passengers per year and will include a terminal, an office building, a flight zone, and related infrastructure. Besides, the investor will build a transport system to link the terminal with Highway No.6.

Na San Airport was constructed in 1950 years by the French. It lies 187 kilometres from Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport and 110km from Dien Bien Phu Airport in the northwestern Dien Bien province. It was considered to have an important role in ensuring national security and the economic development of Son La and the northwest region.

During 1978-2004, a number of the airport's components were upgraded in order to ensure safe flights. In 2004, the operation of the airport was suspended as the airport was found to be too rundown.