Vietnam's $13B airport Long Thanh short of skilled workers two months before opening

Four construction packages at Long Thanh International Airport, including its passenger terminal, risk falling behind schedule because of worker shortages and slow payments, Vietnam's Ministry of Construction has warned. In a report sent to the government on Oct. 20, the ministry said several parts of the airport are behind schedule, with partial operations due to begin on Dec. 24.Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) is the investor in component project 3, which covers the airport's essential facilities and is 86.03% complete by value of work done.Of its 12 construction packages under way, eight are expected to finish in December. The four at risk are the airport's internal roads and technical infrastructure, the passenger terminal, Cargo Terminal No. 1 and its auxiliary works, and the parking building.Work on the passenger terminal is 86.85% complete, with electrical and mechanical installation at 96.2%. Its structure is finished, but a large amount of work remains.Contractors there are struggling to bring in engineers, welders and specialized equipment installers, and slow paperwork has also affected payments and work on site.The terminal has 51 integrated load-test scenarios to check how its power, water supply and drainage, air conditioning, ventilation, firefighting and specialized equipment systems work together, but 16 have yet to be approved.Under the approved scenarios, the contractor has so far tested only the power supply, lighting and public address systems. The other systems have not been tested, and the investor has yet to set a date for finishing the tests. Inside the passenger terminal of Long Thanh International Airport. Photo by VnExpress/Phuoc Tuan The internal roads and technical infrastructure package still has a large volume of work left but lacks enough construction workers, which the ministry called the main reason it cannot speed up.The remaining work also needs about 100,000 tons of asphalt concrete, but supply is severely short, making it hard to finish on schedule.At the airport's energy center, equipment has not been fully installed or test-run, either individually or together with other systems under load.Its readiness is a prerequisite for operating the passenger terminal, and the ministry said the target of completing it in November carries many risks.The ministry blamed the delays at all four packages on contractors not deploying as many workers and technical staff as they had committed to the investor.Slow paperwork has also left a large backlog of completed but unpaid work, and many packages have been paid little relative to the work done, affecting progress.The ministry called on ACV to push contractors to deploy enough workers, machinery, equipment, fuel and materials as committed. Where they fall short, ACV must determine who is responsible and act under the contracts to keep the project on schedule.ACV must also quickly resolve problems with payment for completed work and with changes to materials and equipment from the approved designs.Long Thanh, Vietnam's largest airport by area, covers about 5,000 ha in Dong Nai, some 40 km east of Ho Chi Minh City, and has a total investment of VND336.63 trillion (US$13 billion).Its first phase is designed to handle 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of cargo a year.