Hordes of Vietnamese are flocking to Saigon's Tan Son Nhat International Airport to welcome loved ones from overseas for the Lunar New Year. 

With Tet (Lunar New Year holiday) barely a week away, Tan Son Nhat International Airport is crowded as families and relatives from many southern provinces come to pick up overseas Vietnamese returning home. At 10 p.m., January 17, this was the crowd waiting for arrivals.

According to the airport staff, the number of passengers and their families coming to receive them has significantly increased since the last two weeks.

People look for their family members and relatives through a glass wall. The airport is expected to get peak crowds between January 9 and February 8 as people travel for Tet, the biggest holiday in Vietnam and the main occasion for family reunions.

The seats outside arrival gates are always filled with people these days. Some wait at the barrier. The airport has experienced this pressure during this holiday season for years. Already overcrowded, it handled more than 40 million passengers in 2019, 1.6 times its intended capacity of 25 million.

Tired, people patiently study arrival gate and flight information screens as they wait for their overseas Vietnamese relatives to arrive.

Some take a nap while waiting.

Thu Hien (R) feeds her niece some pieces of bread while waiting for her sister coming home from the U.S. "My sister has settled down there for almost 40 years," she said, adding that no matter how busy the family members are, they always go to the airport to welcome her sister.

At around 1 a.m., January 18, several flights from the U.S. and Japan arrive. Passengers walk out of the gate into a thick crowd of people. The scene is chaotic, and security staff are kept on their toes.

After two hours of waiting, Thanh (L) finally meets his grandaughter Kha Di and her parents visiting from Australia. He said he has been waiting for Tet the whole year just to see his children. The Tet holiday peaks on January 25.

After living in the U.S. for 16 years, this is the first time Cam Van (third from left) has been back to Vietnam.

The number of passengers at the airport per day is expected to average 130,000 during the month, 10,500 more than last year.