Airport rail links to Long Thanh International Airport

Long Thanh International Airport will become the second airport of Ho Chi Minh City upon its opening in December 2025.

Two problems have not been resolved before the airport is expected to open.

The first problem is that it remains undecided which airlines will operate at the old airport (Tan Son Nhat) and which will operate at Long Thanh. I wrote about that in Ho Chi Minh City’s two airports problem.

The second problem is the lack of an airport rail link. There is a plan to build an airport rail link, but for whatever reason, it is not being built in conjunction with the airport construction. 

Long Thanh is about 40 km east of the city centre, so it is unusual for such a big airport to be built so far from the city centre without an airport rail link.

Proposed airport rail links

The plans for linking Long Thanh by railway are as grand as the airport itself. The airport is planned to have 4 runways and eventually handle 100 million passengers a year, and there will eventually be multiple ways to get there by rail.

Thu Thiem - Long Thanh Light Rail

A light rail from Thu Thiem to Long Thanh was announced in 2013, and there have been numerous updates since. While the airport managed to escape the loop of feasibility studies and begin construction, the light rail plan is still being studied.

The most recent update was that a Chinese-Vietnamese consortium has shown interest in building the line. It has also been proposed that the Thu Thiem-Long Thanh railway line will become part of the HCMC urban railway master plan, and not a national railway as it is currently classified.

Thu Thiem - Long Thanh High-Speed Railway

Thu Thiem will also be the terminal station for the high-speed railway, which will also go from Thu Thiem to Long Thanh. That means there will eventually be two train options to get from Thu Thiem to the airport.

Ho Chi Minh City will also join the rare club in Southeast Asia of having a high-speed railway station at an airport (alongside Bangkok's 3-airport high-speed railway plan).

The high-speed route is a more direct route with no stops in between. This will be the premium airport express link, while the light rail will offer a cheaper way to get to the airport, operating like a metro line.

Tan Son Nhat - Long Thanh Metro

There is also talk of a rail link connecting Tan Son Nhat and Long Thanh.

The headlines make it sound like it will be a single metro line that connects the two airports. If you read beyond the headlines, it is a bunch of metro lines cobbled together to connect the two airports. The news report doesn’t explain it well either:

“According to the proposal, passenger transport between the two airports would be served via two main routes: Metro Line 6, connecting infrastructure facilities in the Phu Huu Station area; and Metro Line 2, linking from the Thu Thiem Station area to Tan Son Nhat airport.”

This doesn’t make sense because Line 6 and Line 2 don’t go to either airport. Here is the official future metro map as it stands now (I made a copy of the map and published it here).

Whatever the plan is, this line is a low priority until the Thu Thiem-Long Thanh line is built.

A line connecting the two airports is something I proposed previously on my Ho Chi Minh City Metro Concept Map (if Saigon had a subway like Shanghai).

I proposed to have one metro line connecting Tan Son Nhat and Long Thanh, in addition to the express railway to Long Thanh. This is like Line 2 of the Shanghai Metro, which connects the two airports. Shanghai have since taken connecting the airports a step further with the Airport Link Line. This is a commuter railway, so there are fewer stops in between.

Connecting Long Thanh with commuter railways should also be a long-term goal, and Shanghai is a good place for HCMC to look for inspiration.

Suoi Tien - Bien Hoa - Long Thanh

Another airport rail link has been proposed to connect Line 1 of the HCMC Metro to Bien Hoa and Long Thanh:

“According to the proposal, recently submitted to the Dong Nai People's Committee, the project would extend the existing Metro Line No. 1 from Suoi Tien Station in HCMC to Dong Nai's new administrative center in Bien Hoa 1 Industrial Park, spanning 6.5 kilometers. From there, the line would run another 27 km to Long Thanh airport.”

Line 1 is 19.7 km, so adding another 33.5 km is not a direct way to get from the airport to the city centre. This line is more useful to connect Bien Hoa to HCMC and Long Thanh. Bien Hoa is the capital of Dong Nai province, so there should be an airport rail link between Bien Hoa and Long Thanh (which is in Dong Nai). It just shouldn't be framed as an airport rail link to central HCMC.

Long Thanh - Vung Tau

Another line that has been talked about is a line connecting Long Thanh to Vung Tau.

The Bien Hoa-Vung Tau railway is a planned railway that has yet to break ground. The line will travel near Long Thanh, so it would be a matter of building a junction with the Thu Thiem-Long Thanh Railway.

Before Ba Ria–Vung Tau province was merged into Ho Chi Minh City, there was a proposal to build an urban railway in Vung Tau.

The plan included a line from Vung Tau to Long Thanh. This could be easily done by integrating the Bien Hoa-Vung Tau line with links to Vung Tau city and Long Thanh Airport.

Ba Ria–Vung Tau province was merged into HCMC in 2025, so there is now talk of a 1,000 km urban railway network to include the merged provinces of Binh Duong and Ba Ria–Vung Tau.

If all of these proposals go ahead, then you could be standing in front of the Long Thanh Railway Station departure board and see trains for Thu Thiem and Vung Tau (HCMC), Bien Hoa (Dong Nai), and high-speed stations to the north. An airport as large as Long Thanh should have multiple ways to get there by rail, and not just from HCMC.

What is the best-case scenario for airport rail links to Long Thanh?

Out of all of the lines, the Thu Thiem - Long Thanh line needs to be built as soon as possible. This is a grim prospect when you consider that Line 1 of the HCMC metro took over 12 years to build the 19.7 km line.

A more realistic example would be to look at Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) is over 45 km from the city centre, so it’s a good comparison for Long Thanh.

KUL began construction on 1 June 1993, and it opened on 27 June 1998 (just over 5 years to build). The Express Rail Link construction began in May 1997 and opened in April 2002, so it took nearly 5 years to build their airport rail link.

Line 2 of the HCMC Metro also needs to be built

Another pressing issue is that Thu Thiem Station needs to be connected to the metro system. Thu Thiem will be connected to Ben Thanh in central HCMC by Line 2, but Line 2 hasn’t begun construction yet. Line 2 is expected to begin construction at the end of 2025, but it will not include the section from Ben Thanh to Thu Thiem.

The Ben Thanh to Thu Thiem section of Line 2 should be the highest priority of any of the next lines that are planned for construction. It has been over 10 years in planning, but still no shovels in the ground.

Not only will this section of Line 2 connect the city with the airport and high-speed station, but Thu Thiem is part of the proposed international financial hub.

Meanwhile, a metro line to Can Gio, which was first proposed in January 2025, is now reported to break ground in November this year.

Line 2 of the metro and the Thu Thiem-Long Thanh line need the same kind of urgency shown as the Can Gio line.