Van Don, Vietnam's first private airport, has been chosen the World's Leading New Airport 2019 by the World Travel Awards (WTA). 

The Van Don International Airport, located in Quang Ninh Province, beat seven rivals from around the world – the U.S.’s Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, the U.K.'s Carlisle Lake District Airport, Spain's Corvera Murcia Airport, Israel's Eilat Ramon Airport, India's Pakyong International Airport, Singapore's Seletar Airport and Indonesia's Yogyakarta Adisucipto International Airport – to win the award.

Officially inaugurated in December 2018, the VND7.5 trillion ($324 million) airport is about 50 kilometers from Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO-recognized world heritage site.

Van Don International Airport

The 'World's Leading New Airport' award was introduced by WTA last year, and its first winner was the Muscat International Airport, Oman. WTA said the award, announced Thursday, is based on rigorous evaluation of criteria, including the overall design of the airport, service quality, passenger satisfaction, and the customer experience in application of new technologies.

Sun Group representative (in yellow) received
the award World’s Leading New Airport at WTA 2019.

The Van Don International Airport has consistently maintained high standards of service to ensure maximum satisfaction for passengers while meeting the demands of carriers that use it, its developer Sun Group said in a press release.

The airport has signed a quality commitment with the carriers. It has modern equipment and technology bought from the world's leading brands.

Director of the Van Don International Airport, Pham Ngoc Sau, said that the award would put the airport on the global aviation map. "It is also a matter of pride and motivation for us to continue improving the quality of service and give customers the best experience," he said.

Van Don International Airport

As of November 22, nearly 1,800 flights had landed at Van Don airport, 117 of them international. The number of passengers using the airport reached nearly 235,000, nearly 10,000 of them foreigners.

Besides existing international routes from the airport to Shenzhen, Hunan, Shanghai of China and Seoul of South Korea, more flights are planned from several other cities in China (Hainan, Nanning and Guangzhou), Japan and Thailand to Van Don.

Flights from Van Don to Phu Quoc will be added to the domestic roster soon, adding to the current destinations of Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang.

The Van Don International Airport is one of world’s top five airports for service quality in the first quarter, according to a survey done by the Airport Performance Measurement Program (APMP) and released in May.

The survey covered 47 airports worldwide and was based on indicators from SKYTRAX, a UK-based international air transport rating organization. The other airports in the top 5 list were Jukuoka in Japan, Sydney in Australia, and Kaohsiung and Taoyuan in Taiwan.