Makes sense.
For airports serving between 20 and 25 million passengers annually, Saigon's Tan Son Nhat made it into the top ten of "Best Airports" according to Skytrax,thea British airport rating website.
However, the listing is somewhat deceiving, as this simply means it had the 10th-most passengers last year in that category, which isn't surprising given Vietnam's overall strong handling of the pandemic in 2020.
According to Skytrax, "these awards use the air traffic statistics for departure, arrival, and transit from 2020, and group together airports handling a similar volume of customers to give a like-for-like analysis."
London's Heathrow snagged the number one position, followed by Amsterdam Schiphol and Paris CDG.
The report cites overall successes in arrivals and departures. However, in the overall top 100 list of airports in the world voted on by passengers and published by the site, Tan Son Nhat failed to make the cut. Doha Hamad International Airport was ranked first overall, displacing perennial winner Changi in Singapore.
Prior to the tumult caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Tan Son Nhat was operating well beyond capacity. Long Thanh International Airport in Dong Nai Province has long been in the works to alleviate the congestion issues, though actual construction is yet to begin. Numerous terminal and runway upgrades, meanwhile, have been undertaken and proposed to serve as a stopgap.
This article has been edited to reflect the fact that Tan Son Nhat was the world's 10th busiest airport with 20-25 million passengers in 2020, not the world's 10th-best.
[Photo via Flickr user Robertus B. Herdiyanto.]
