Phu Quoc International Airport's expanded facilities remain on schedule to open in April 2027, with 7,671 workers and engineers now deployed across Terminal 2, a VIP terminal, catering facilities, aprons and a second runway.

Construction began in September 2025 and has accelerated after a year of work. The programme carries a hard external deadline: several major components are being pushed toward completion ahead of the APEC 2027 summit, which Vietnam is set to host.

Terminal 2's main concrete structure stood at roughly 95 per cent complete at the end of September, according to the project management board, and the main steel roof structure is finished. The project consumes more than 51,000 tonnes of structural steel, of which about 33,000 tonnes went into the roof and the terminal's two wings.

Crews are now installing around 9,500 unitised glass panels on the terminal façade, engineered to withstand Phu Quoc's sun, heavy rain and coastal winds. Inside the building, electrical and other technical systems are going in alongside architectural finishing work.

The baggage system defines the terminal's throughput logic. An automated handling system stretching more than eight kilometres in its first phase is being installed across three floors and was about 60 per cent complete as of September. Once operational, it will process roughly 7,560 departing bags and 6,300 arriving bags per hour — a capacity envelope sized for the passenger volumes the airport expects to carry in the years after opening.

Rain, not labour or materials, is the binding constraint. Tran Van Chung, a supervisor for Terminal 2 finishing work, said prolonged heavy rain in late September had mainly affected outdoor work, particularly the roof and façade, as well as the transport of construction materials from the mainland. Contractors have responded by increasing material deliveries during favourable weather windows and expanding on-site storage areas to buffer supplies through wet periods. Despite the late-September downpours, crews continued erecting steel structures, roofing and glass façades.

The capacity case is straightforward. The expansion is scheduled for completion and the start of operations in April 2027, lifting annual throughput to around 20-24 million passengers by 2030. Under longer-term plans, the completed terminal complex — designed to resemble a phoenix — is built out for up to 50 million passengers annually, a figure that would place Phu Quoc among Southeast Asia's larger leisure-airport hubs.

A technical flight scheduled for December 30, 2026 will serve as the key validation milestone ahead of the planned opening, testing the runway, taxiway and airside systems before commercial operations begin.

For airlines serving the island, the April 2027 date matters for network planning: added terminal capacity, a second runway and expanded aprons will determine how quickly carriers can add frequencies and widebody operations into a market currently constrained by existing infrastructure. The next checkpoint is the December technical flight, which will show whether the programme holds to its schedule through the remaining monsoon season.