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From 3:30 p.m., vehicles poured onto roads around Tan Son Nhat airport including Truong Son, Tran Quoc Hoan, Phan Thuc Duyen and Hoang Van Thu, bringing traffic to a crawl.
The five-day National Day holiday begins for most people at the end of the workday on Aug. 28.
Across the holiday, Tan Son Nhat expects to handle an average of 780 flights and around 130,000 passengers a day, peaking on Sept. 2 at roughly 800 flights and 135,000 passengers.
Tan Son Nhat is Vietnam's busiest airport, moving 42.1 million passengers in 2025 against 33 million at Hanoi's Noi Bai, according to Airports Corporation of Vietnam figures.
Vehicles queue through the 400 m Phan Thuc Duyen underpass, with motorbikes squeezing through the gaps between cars.
The underpass connects Hoang Van Thu Street and the Phu Nhuan and Tan Binh areas to Terminal 3.
By 4:35 p.m. the volume had grown heavier and congestion worsened into the late afternoon.
The road running alongside the Phan Thuc Duyen underpass, used by vehicles turning left toward the Lang Cha Ca roundabout, was jammed.
Traffic builds on and beneath the Lang Cha Ca roundabout overpass heading toward the Phu Nhuan intersection.
Heavy traffic on Truong Son Street, the approach to the airport's Terminal 1.
Tan Son Nhat is in its National Day peak. On Aug. 28 the airport handled 735 passenger flights carrying more than 121,000 arriving and departing travelers, concentrated on domestic routes from the afternoon into the evening.
Inside the domestic terminal, check-in lines were long but had not backed up the way they did in previous years. Several airlines have moved to Terminal 3, leaving Vietjet as the only carrier still operating at Terminal 1.
Cars queue at the Terminal 1 exit. Vehicles that pull into the drop-off area have to leave by this route.
Starting Aug. 28, the internal road at international Terminal 2 was linked to domestic Terminal 1 to keep vehicles moving and limit backups, particularly over the Sept. 2 holiday.
The surge in passengers has made ride-hailing bookings difficult at the airport. Unable to get a car after landing at Terminal 1, Binh carried a box and a backpack about 300 m out to Truong Son Street to find a ride.
The access roads to the domestic Terminal 3, more than 1.5 km from the international Terminal 2 and shared by several airlines, stayed relatively clear.
