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When Does Long Thanh Airport Open? Timeline Explained
The current opening timeline for Long Thanh International Airport - trial operation, first commercial flights, and why the dates have moved before.
The current target
As of mid-2026, the plan runs in three visible steps. The airport was ceremonially inaugurated in December 2025, when the first aircraft used its new runway — a milestone, not an opening. Trial operations are scheduled from September through November 2026, in three phases of increasing realism. And December 1, 2026 is the formally proposed date for commercial service to begin, with Vietnamese officials repeatedly tying the opening to late 2026.
That sentence is deliberately careful, and this page explains why.
Why the careful wording
Very large airports do not open on a single morning. The sequence runs roughly: construction completion, then technical testing of every system, then trial operation — real aircraft, real staff, controlled passenger numbers — and only then a commercial opening, often route by route rather than all at once. Each stage can stretch. Long Thanh’s own history includes shifted milestones, which is normal for a project of this size and a reason to treat any single date as a target rather than a promise.
For a traveller, the practical reading is this: if you are booking a flight for the opening months and your ticket shows Long Thanh, believe the ticket. If you are planning further ahead and wondering which airport you will use, expect a transition period in which some flights serve the new airport while many still serve Tan Son Nhat.
What trial operation means for passengers
Trial operation is the shakedown phase: airlines and ground teams rehearse turnarounds, immigration and baggage systems run under increasing load, and procedures get corrected while volumes are still low. Some trial phases include passenger flights; whether and when the public can fly in them depends on decisions announced close to the time.
If your travel falls in this window, treat information published by your airline as the authority on where you take off and land — schedules during a transition change with shorter notice than usual.
How to check the current status
- Your airline’s booking and notifications — the only source that knows where your flight operates
- Official announcements from Vietnamese aviation authorities — for opening milestones
- This page — which is updated as the timeline firms up, and will switch from targets to actual dates once the airport is operating
The planning takeaway
Build your plans around flexibility rather than a date. Book transfers that can be amended, allow generous connection margins in the opening period, and if your arrival matters — a wedding, a cruise, a meeting — consider arrival assistance so that however the opening months are running, someone who was in the terminal yesterday is walking you through it today.