The madness of second airports

Chiang Mai should build a high-speed railway, Greater HCMC wants a 3rd airport when it can’t even build the 2nd, build a railway for Haiphong, and the weird Kedah proposal.

While I have been in Chiang Mai, I’ve been wondering about the proposed second airport that was in the news a few years ago.

The airport was approved in 2018, and it was expected to begin construction in 2019. The news trail of the second airport goes cold after that. COVID obviously put a damper on the appetite for airport projects.

Air traffic is now returning to pre-pandemic levels, so discussions about new and expanded airports are back in the news cycle again.

While there is a need to maintain and expand airports, at what point should a city have more than one airport? I also wonder if the national transport bodies are overseeing these plans, or are the airport and railway bodies working separately and in competition with each other, to the detriment of better transport for the nation?

Does Chiang Mai need a second airport?

On a recent visit to Chiang Mai Airport, I noted that the departure was almost all flights to Bangkok.

Here are the domestic flights from CNX flights on Wiki, which is still using 2019 stats:

The combined Bangkok airports are the overwhelming first-place total of 6,431,410. Second place is Phuket with 415,726.

For international flights, the number one destination was 446,398 passengers.

Meanwhile, the Bangkok-Chiang Mai high-speed railway proposal was proposed again in 2023. What if the money allocated to the second airport were put towards the high-speed railway instead? There is no way to tell how the high-speed rail would compete with air travel here, but we can look at other countries.

The Madrid-Barcelona high-speed railway was launched in 2008, and around 75% of travellers from Barcelona to Madrid now choose the train over flying. That route is 506 km and takes 2h 44m.

The length of the railway would be 670 km with 12 stations. The top speed would be 300kph, and the trip would take about three and a half hours. That is more time than the Madrid-Barcelona trip. Let’s say it can capture 2/3 of the market instead of 3/4 of the market that Madrid-Barcelona has. 2/3 of the 6,431,410 Bangkok-Chiang Mai passengers would be 4,244,730 passengers.

Removing 4 million passengers a year from Chiang Mai International Airport would go a long way to alleviating congestion, and the railway would benefit other cities on the same route.

A second airport for Dong Nai Province?

Vietnam continues its airport expansion plans, while the North-South express railway remains in perpetual planning.

One of the airport proposals is to turn Bien Hoa Air Base into a joint commercial and military airport. This airport has been in the news over the last few years as it has been undergoing a dioxin clean-up.

The airport is in Dong Nai Province, east of Ho Chi Minh City. Dong Nai is also the location of the future second airport of HCMC at Long Thanh.

Long Thanh is already planned to be the largest airport in Vietnam, so there doesn’t need to be a third airport for HCMC. And of all places, a second airport in Dong Nai is not needed.

The construction of Long Thanh International Airport has been delayed for years. It would make more sense to put everything into trying to finish what is becoming a cursed airport project rather than building another airport.

There is a plan to build a railway from Bien Hoa to a port at Vung Tau. This plan has been years in planning without a single sod of dirt being turned to start construction. The railway would connect the port to the North-South Railway (which goes through Bien Hoa). The railway could also be used to connect HCMC to Vung Tau.

Instead of building a passenger terminal at Bien Hoa, the money should be allocated to building the Bien Hoa – Vung Tau Railway. That railway could be connected directly to Long Thanh Airport, and Bien Hoa will eventually be connected to HCMC by an extended metro line.

Haiphong second airport

Haiphong is another city that is planning for a second airport.

Haiphong is a city of about 2.389 million people, so it is hardly a candidate for a second airport. Again, it would be better to allocate resources to developing the railway. There is a plan to modernise the Hanoi-Haiphong railway, and it would be more beneficial to build that than build a second airport.

Second airport for Kedah State

Kulim International Airport is the airport proposal that won’t die. This airport made the news last week after seemingly being written off last year.

Kulim is in Kedah State, though it is closer to Penang than the capital of Kedah (Alor Setar). Penang is already getting an expansion, Alor Setar is under-utilised, and there is an airport at Ipoh in the next state to the south that barely gets any use. This airport has been called politically motivated.