The plane descended into Tan Son Nhat International airport, immediately came the welcoming dark clouds and thunders, it hovers around the city and not soon after, came a heavy down pour that felt like never ends.
I can't remember clearly when I was last here but it felt long enough, long enough to feel familiar but couldn't remember the exact details. The airport feels the same what change thou was there were significantly more flights, and the airport is getting way too crowded. True enough a quick check on the internet, a third terminal is currently under constructions and is estimated to complete in 2024 by the end of 2024.
Just to put things into perspective, the current terminal 2 (international airport) was opened in 2007 with an initial design capacity of 10 million passenger a year. In 2014 the airport was serving 9 million passenger a year. The terminal 2 has undergone several expansion plans, first phase 2016 and second phase 2018 to cater for the growing demand, and yet it is still far from perfect, in 2018 passenger per year hit 38.5million, however as of April 2023 the capacity could only cater for 28 million passenger a year. A new airport called Long Thanh International Airport is currently under constructions on a new location away from Ho Chi Minh city, which make sense as Tan Son Nhat is probably running out of expansion space as is situated in the city area.
At least from my point of view.. a good problem to have, this shows that people are travelling more these days and money is circulating around. I could tell that the authorities are making an effort into upgrading an improvements, there are more space to seat, and for those who are willing to spent a few extra bucks, you get a comfortable seating area with a view.
The service level has definitely improve, the attendees from the check in counter to the waitress at the restaurants could grasp a good level of English and mandarin to cater for a wider market. Things are definitely moving in the right direction, I am pleasantly surprise at the same time worried if Malaysia gonna get left behind, there has been sign of regression, take the good vibe concerts for example, I personally do not agree that they cancel the whole event, these deter others from wanting to even organize a concert in Malaysia. As well lately the expose on our airport immigration on corrupt practices.
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