Cam Ranh International Airport

Military origins

In April 1965 the United States Pacific Command ordered an engineering survey for a new airfield at Cam Ranh Bay, and in mid-1965 the construction consortium RMK-BRJ was directed to build it^[4]. The first runway was a temporary 10,000 ft strip of AM-2 aluminium matting covering about 200,000 square metres; it was finished in 50 days and the last plank was laid on 16 October 1965^[4]. United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force units used the wider Cam Ranh Bay complex from its opening in 1965 until its closure in 1972 during the American drawdown^[4].

After the Paris Agreement of 1973 the base was handed to the Republic of Vietnam Air Force^[2]. Between 1979 and 2002 the facility was used by the Soviet and then the Russian navies^[4], and it stayed in military hands until 2004^[2]. The airport is still shared between civil aviation and the armed forces^[2][3].

Opening to civil flights

On 19 May 2004 the airport received its first civil flight, from Hanoi, taking over from Nha Trang airport, which sat inside the city and was limited in area and constrained for safety reasons^[2]. Traffic was small at first: about 500,000 passengers in 2007, then eighth in Vietnam by volume, and 683,000 in 2008^[2]. Night operations began in June 2008^[2].

On 16 August 2007 the Government Office issued the decision upgrading Cam Ranh to an international airport^[2]. The status took effect in December 2009 with the opening of a new terminal, making Cam Ranh the third international airport of the central coast region; on the morning the decision was announced the airport received a SilkAir Airbus A319 flying direct from Singapore^[2].

Runways and terminals

The airport has two parallel concrete runways, 02L/20R and 02R/20L, each 3,048 m long^[1][2]. The Vietnamese description gives their width as 45 m^[2] and the English article gives 150 ft, or 45.72 m, which it prints as 46 m^[1], so the two are the same measurement rounded differently and not a disagreement between sources. Work on the second runway began on 15 March 2015 and it entered service on 10 October 2019^[2]. The apron has 33 aircraft stands and the aerodrome is rated 4E, able to take Boeing 787, 777 and 767, Airbus A350, A320 and A321 and ATR 72 aircraft^[2].

Terminal 1, used for domestic flights, was begun in 2007 and inaugurated on 12 December 2009. It covers 14,000 m², has two air bridges and was designed for 800 passengers an hour, 600 domestic and 200 international. An upgrade carried out between 2015 and 2016 raised its annual capacity from 1.5 million to a maximum of 2.7 million passengers^[1].

Terminal 2, the international terminal, was built by Turner Construction and opened on 30 June 2018 after 19 months of work^[1][2]. It covers 50,500 m² on three storeys and has four air bridges, ten boarding gates, six baggage carousels and 80 check-in desks^[1]. Its roof form was drawn from the shape of a swallow's nest, a product associated with Khanh Hoa, and from the waves of Nha Trang bay^[1]. The terminal is owned and run by Cam Ranh International Terminal JSC, a company separate from the airport operator^[1][2].

Passenger traffic

Cam Ranh grew quickly through the 2010s, passing one million passengers in 2011 and nine million in 2019, which made it the fourth busiest airport in Vietnam after Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang^[1]. Traffic fell to 972,817 in 2021 before recovering^[1]. In 2024 the airport handled more than 6.8 million passengers on 40,044 flights, which the provincial newspaper reported as a rise of about 20 per cent on 2023, and its revenue was estimated at 666.1 billion VND^[5].

Airlines and routes

In the first seven months of 2025 the airport handled 24,632 flight movements carrying more than 4.2 million passengers, up 2.8 per cent on the same period of 2024; 14,827 of those movements were international and carried more than 2.7 million passengers, up 4.3 per cent^[6].

At that date four Vietnamese carriers served Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong and Da Nang at an average of 46 flights a day, and 22 foreign airlines served markets including South Korea, China, Russia, Thailand, Malaysia and Central Asia at an average of 70 flights a day^[6]. The provincial tourism department reported queues at passport control at peak hours and technical faults on the domestic baggage belts, and the provincial People's Committee asked the airport and the border and customs agencies to shorten processing times^[6].

Master plan to 2050

The Ministry of Construction approved the airport's master plan for 2021 to 2030 with a vision to 2050 by Decision 872/QĐ-BXD of 5 June 2026^[3]. For the period to 2030 the airport is planned at aerodrome code 4E with about 19.0 million passengers and 50,000 tonnes of cargo a year; by 2050 the figures rise to about 36.0 million passengers and 100,000 tonnes^[3].

Under the plan runway 02R/20L is kept as built and 02L/20R is replaced by a runway of 3,350 m by 45 m about 360 m west of the other centreline^[7]. The apron grows to about 45 stands by 2030 and about 70 by 2050^[7]. A new Terminal 1 building is to be joined to the existing one to give a combined 11.0 million passengers a year, and Terminal 2 is to be enlarged to about 8.0 million; by 2050 Terminal 1 reaches about 14.0 million and a new Terminal 3 to the south adds another 14.0 million^[7]. The cargo terminal north of Terminal 2 is planned at 50,000 tonnes a year, rising to 100,000 tonnes^[7]. Total land needed is about 628.41 ha, of which about 238.00 ha is managed by civil aviation, about 47.89 ha by the military and about 342.52 ha is shared land under civil aviation management^[7].