Dao Cong Thien, deputy chairman of the central Khanh Hoa Province, home to Cam Ranh, said the new runway should be put into use soon since the first one has deteriorated after over 40 years of use.

Authorities plan to begin using it on May 23.

Construction began in 2015 at a cost of VND1.9 trillion ($82 million), with the government and province sharing it equally.

The three-kilometer, 45-meter-wide runway can handle wide-body aircraft such as Boeing 777s.

The work was supposed to be completed last year, but was delayed due to land acquisition issues.

Khanh Hoa Province last year received 6.3 million visitors, up 16.7 percent from 2017, 44 percent of them foreigners. Chinese nationals accounted for the majority of international arrivals. Most of the visitors flock to the beach town Nha Trang, 45 minutes drive north of Cam Ranh Airport.

Vietnam’s tourism boom is causing frantic construction of new airports and upgrades to existing ones. Almost 70 million passengers passed through the country’s airports last year, up 12.6 percent from 2017, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam.