Airports crowded due to unsufficient slots

Aviation officials in Viet Nam are becoming increasingly concerned about the overcrowding at international terminals in both Ha Noi and HCM City.
Airlines are losing money due to minor delays that are being caused by an increased number of flights.
Aircraft usually have to circle Ha Noi's Noi Bai and HCM City's Tan Son Nhat Airports for several minutes before a runway becomes available and they are given a landing slot.
Every single additional minute an aircraft has to stay in the air costs millions of dong in fuel, according to Viet Nam Airlines pilots, not to mention the additional greenhouse gases that are discharged into the air.
The situation is expected to worsen, with more and more carriers set to enter the market in the near future.
Lai Xuan Thanh, head of the Civil Aviation Administration, blamed the problem on the high growth of the aviation market and inadequate infrastructure at domestic airports.
One of the best ways to solve the problem, according to Thanh, was to co-ordinate flights in order to optimise the so-called 'slot', or the duration during which aircraft remained grounded at airports.
However, slots depended on a terminals' check-in and check-out capacity, and any delay in those procedures could lead to aircraft being grounded for longer, he said.
To compound the problem, domestic carriers base most of their fleets at the country's two biggest airports, leading to a shortage of parking bays, especially overnight.
"For now, the shortage is not so serious to the point that it can affect the performance of carriers," he said, "But the current capacity of the airports will fail to catch up with the growth of the aviation market in the next five years."
"Obviously carriers will expand their fleets and need more parking bays as a result," he added.
Although there are plans to expand Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat in anticipation of the growth, both have limited land available for the purpose.
"The airports are negotiating with the Ministry of National Defence to allocate more land for their expansion," he said.
Carriers have also been encouraged to base their fleets at other airports across the country, including Da Nang and Can Tho.
"Carriers like Viet Nam Airlines operate just a few flights to and from those cities, so they are unwilling to base their fleets there," said Thanh.
"Even if there was only one aircraft based at an airport, it would need maintenance, technical and land service teams, which are very costly," he explained.
Only when carriers increased the number of flights to cities such as Da Nang and Can Tho, would they start to consider basing part of their fleets there, he added.