HCMC – Multiple north–south air services have been fully booked until the 10th day of the Lunar New Year (Tet), and Tan Son Nhat International Airport is set to serve nearly 170,000 passengers today, the fifth day of Tet.
Tan Son Nhat is scheduled to operate 1,037 flights and serve around 169,709 passengers on the fifth day of Tet, with more than 101,000 arrivals to HCMC.
Rising demand for traveling back to HCMC for work and study after Tet has led to full bookings on multiple routes from the north and central regions.
On the Vinh–HCMC route during the fifth and sixth days of Tet, seats on direct flights are nearly unavailable. Connecting flights via Hanoi are priced at up to VND9 million.
Flights from Thanh Hoa to HCMC are sold out through the 10th day of Tet, while services from Haiphong have no seats available until the end of the ninth day.
On the Danang–HCMC route for the fifth and sixth days of Tet, carriers including Vietnam Airlines have reported no available tickets.
Some passengers have shifted to traveling by road to Hanoi to seek alternative flights to the south. However, tickets on the Hanoi–HCMC route are also limited, with business-class fares reaching VND9.8 million per one-way ticket.
Certain airlines such as Vietjet and Sun PhuQuoc Airways have arranged connecting itineraries via Phu Quoc before continuing to HCMC, with fares starting from VND5.98 million.
According to the Tan Son Nhat Airport Operations Center, of the total passengers expected on the fifth day of Tet, 101,436 are arriving in HCMC, compared to 68,273 departing passengers. Arrivals include over 71,000 domestic and around 30,000 international passengers.
Passenger traffic has been allocated across terminals to ease congestion. Terminal T3, with a designed capacity of 20 million passengers per year and total investment of VND11 trillion, is handling 66,000 passengers. Terminal T1, which is used by Vietjet, is serving 43,000 passengers, while International Terminal T2 is handling over 60,000 passengers.
