SCS: At a Glance
- Long Thanh status
- Confidential MOU with ACV signed; cooperation plan still being negotiated (AGM minutes)
- Commercial launch target
- 1 Dec 2026 (ACV's plan)
- Access bridge completion
- Q1 2027
- H1 2026 cargo volume, YoY
- −6.47% (Q1 alone: −5.4%)
- Qatar's share of cargo volume
- ~20% (official AGM figure; recovering since Apr 2026)
- 2026 ESOP
- 1,020,700 new shares (~1.0% of shares out.), approved 71.92% / against 28.04%
- Cash + deposits (30 Jun 2026)
- ₫1,746.3bn
- Fundamentals
- SCS company page
- Further reading
- SCS - Q2/2026 Snapshot · [Live] SCS AGM 2026
1. The MOU: What the Official Minutes Say
SCS's route into Long Thanh runs through one document nobody outside has read: an MOU with ACV (Airports Corporation of Vietnam), the state-owned operator of the new airport. The 2026 AGM minutes, filed with the State Securities Commission and the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, confirm the MOU exists and nothing more.
The same minutes explain why SCS can only come in through a cooperation deal, not a direct award: the state has already split the terminal ownership between two other parties.
Unofficial live meeting notes add color the minutes don't: the board relayed what ACV's General Director told a January gathering of airlines (quoted below), cited Decree 68 (equal footing for private firms vs. FDI/state enterprises) as making a PPP-style arrangement more workable, and put SCS's market share at roughly 50%, "but we're waiting on ACV's decision."
2. Life With and Without Long Thanh
What "with Long Thanh" looks like, officially
The official minutes put a number on the upside scenario, and immediately hedge it:
SCS operates on a 14.3-hectare plot at Tan Son Nhat, of which about 5 hectares is an apron leased to ACV that would no longer be used if flights shift to Long Thanh. The official minutes say SCS has discussed cooperation plans with Lufthansa (the shareholder asked about aircraft maintenance, MRO), but that they cannot yet be implemented because of two open issues:
What "without Long Thanh," or "Long Thanh delayed," looks like
I could not find the board's plainest statement on a Long Thanh delay in any official filing, so it comes from the live meeting notes, not the minutes:
Meanwhile SCS runs its existing Tan Son Nhat operation without Long Thanh, and the official minutes (Q&A item 7) already state a playbook for falling cargo volume: "SCSC holds about 50% market share at Tan Son Nhat Airport; when cargo volume decreases, the BOM has response scenarios and cost optimization to ensure efficiency."
3. Risk or Chance? ACV's Own Phased Rollout
On Long Thanh's impact, the live meeting notes record the board leaning on IATA's position and then qualifying it: "I've reviewed a letter from IATA, they support Long Thanh, but the airlines are also very conservative: everything has to be fully ready before they'll start." (unofficial notes, not the filed minutes). ACV's own official migration plan, disclosed to SCS shareholders in the Q2 2026 investor bulletin, backs this up independently and in far more detail:
| Phase | Window | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dec 2026 – Mar 2027 | Airlines voluntarily register, mostly a small number of domestic routes |
| 2 | Mar – Oct 2027 | International + domestic carriers register under the summer schedule |
| 3 | After Oct 2027 | Long Thanh ramps from 50% toward full design capacity |
Source: ACV, disclosed in SCS's official Q2 2026 Investor Newsletter ("SCSC BẢN TIN NHÀ ĐẦU TƯ QUÝ 2 NĂM 2026"). The bulletin adds that allocation "will be driven by actual passenger demand rather than fixed rules," with no requirement that long-haul flights use Long Thanh exclusively; the same route can run from both airports at once.
4. My Opinion: I Don't Think This Goes Smoothly on Schedule
ACV's plan, as reported on 29 June 2026 (An ninh Thủ đô), is specific: integrated trial operations in September 2026 and commercial operation in December 2026. A July 2026 report (Znews) on a Civil Aviation Authority letter puts the trials at September to November and the target at 1 December.
I don't think Long Thanh opens smoothly on this timeline. This is my read of the evidence below, not inside information, and I could be wrong.
First, the roads won't be ready on opening day. VEC, the state operator widening the HCMC–Long Thanh expressway and building the new Long Thanh bridge, plans to have the expressway "basically complete" by end-2026, according to CafeF (Nov 2025). The new bridge's main span is due in December 2026 and the whole bridge in Q1 2027, one to four months after the planned 1 December 2026 commercial launch. I see the bridge as the real chokepoint into the airport.
Second, VEC itself expects congestion while the work is under way:
Third, a March 2025 directive relayed by the Government Office (document 2143/VPCP-CN, Deputy Prime Minister Trần Hồng Hà) told the Ministry of Construction to strive to inaugurate the expansion on 2 September 2026, National Day. The plan reported in November 2025 is "basically complete" by the end of 2026. Separately, land-clearance disputes in Ho Chi Minh City were reported in May 2026 as an active threat even to that goal.
Sources: Báo Đấu thầu, "Phấn đấu khánh thành Dự án mở rộng đoạn cao tốc TP.HCM - Long Thành vào 2/9/2026," 21 Mar 2025 (baodauthau.vn; the directive); CafeF, Nov 2025 (above); Xa Luận News, "Mở rộng cao tốc TP.HCM - Long Thành 15.000 tỷ đồng: Nguy cơ chậm tiến độ vì mặt bằng," 24 May 2026 (xaluannews.com; land-clearance report).
Put together: a plan to open commercially on 1 December 2026, a highway corridor its own builder admits will be congested during construction, and a bridge not fully finished until after the airport opens. I think "on schedule and smooth" is the less likely outcome.
5. The Real Risk: An Oil War, Not an Airport
SCS's own official Q1 2026 investor bulletin, not press commentary, states plainly that the Middle East conflict is already showing up in the cargo numbers:
The same bulletin devotes a full section, in the company's own words, to the war's effects: a systemic shock to the global logistics network, not a one-off. It also says the loss of sea routes pushes cargo onto planes: "Air cargo demand increases, particularly for urgent and high-value shipments."
By Q2, the damage was visible in SCS's own headline cargo figures too:
| Metric | H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total cargo volume (tonnes) | 131,369 | 122,867 | −6.47% |
| International cargo (tonnes) | 103,807 | 96,941 | −6.61% |
| Domestic cargo (tonnes) | 27,562 | 25,926 | −5.94% |
Source: SCS, Q2 2026 Investor Newsletter ("SCSC BẢN TIN NHÀ ĐẦU TƯ QUÝ 2 NĂM 2026"). Over the same six months the bulletin reports total revenue up 2.11% and profit after tax up 0.46%.
At the April AGM the board was calmer about the same conflict: it "has an impact, but it is not too significant for SCSC," because "increased cargo volume from other airlines largely compensated for the shortage" (Q&A item 7).
SCS's Q2 2026 bulletin also runs a forward scenario for a separate, newer risk: a Houthi blockade threat against Saudi Arabia.
6. The ESOP: A Contested Vote, Years in the Making
SCS's 2026 AGM approved a new employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). The filed numbers: 1,020,700 new shares issued at VND 10,000 par (not below it), raising shares outstanding from 102,076,982 to 103,097,682, including 7,190,000 dividend-preferred shares held by 41 Aircraft Repairing Co., Ltd. (the AGM minutes exclude them from the voting shares). SCS's filing states the ratio as 1.0% (1,020,700 / 102,076,982 rounds to that). The shares went to 165 employees. The issue completed on 12 June 2026 and the State Securities Commission confirmed it on 23 June 2026.
Source: SCS, Report on Results of Share Issuance under the ESOP, No. SCSC26/UBCK/BC/340 (16 Jun 2026); Board Resolution No. SCSC26/HĐQT/NQ/04 (11 May 2026); State Securities Commission Official Dispatch No. 5745/UBCK-QLCB (23 Jun 2026); AGM Resolution No. SCSC26/ĐHĐCĐ/NQ/01 (28 Apr 2026).
This isn't SCS's first ESOP. The company's board resolutions and SSC filings let me trace the full history back to 2017. It is not a yearly program: in roughly nine years, six tranches completed and one planned tranche didn't.
| Completed | Shares | Ratio | Price/share | AGM authorization |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Nov 2017 | 533,700 (533,772 planned) | 1.08% | 10,000 (par) | 2017 AGM |
| 23 Sep 2019 | 380,000 | 0.76% | 48,000 | 2018 & 2019 AGM |
| Jun 2020 | 380,000 | 0.75% | 32,000 | 2018 AGM |
| Apr 2023 | 500,000 (505,000 planned) | 0.5% | 25,000 | 2021 AGM ("tranche 1") |
| Apr 2024 | 507,800 | 0.5% | 23,100 | 2021 AGM ("tranche 2") |
| Not completed | 1,020,700 planned | 1.0% | 11,970 | 2024 AGM ("tranche 1, 2025–2027") |
| Jun 2026 | 1,020,700 | 1.0% | 10,000 (par) | 2026 AGM |
Sources: SCS board resolutions and SSC filings for each tranche, 2017–2026 (see sources list below). The 2023 actual is back-solved from the share-count reconciliation between consecutive filings, not a dedicated completion report; the 2017 and 2023 shortfalls versus the planned figures both match SCS's standard rounding-down of individual allocations (per the company's ESOP regulations), not an error. For 2023 and 2024 the date is that of the board resolution raising charter capital after the issue (21 Apr 2023 and 9 Apr 2024); the SSC confirmed the results on 18 Apr 2023 and 29 Mar 2024.
The 2019 and 2020 rows are two separate board resolutions nine months apart, not one delayed tranche: SCSC19/HĐQT/NQ/16 (17 Jul 2019, 66 employees) and SCSC20/HĐQT/NQ/03 (16 Apr 2020), each issuing 380,000 shares and each confirmed by its own SSC filing (23 Sep 2019 and June 2020).
The jump between the 2020 and 2023 rows isn't a missed ESOP tranche either. In August 2022, SCS issued 43,133,482 bonus shares (100:85) to all existing common shareholders, funded from retained earnings and reserves, not employee cash. 57,935,700 + 43,133,482 = 101,069,182, exactly the base the 2023 tranche was measured against.In May 2025, SCS's board approved issuing the same 1,020,700 shares at VND 11,970 each, under a "2025–2027" program the 2024 AGM had authorized, targeted for Q2 2025. It never completed. The board resolution approving the 2026 issue says, in a standard disclosure field, that there had been no ESOP issuance "in the last 12 months" as of May 2026. The 2026 AGM re-approved the tranche from scratch at a lower price: par, VND 10,000, against 11,970 in 2025. No document explains why the 2025 plan lapsed or why the price changed.
Ratios haven't grown steadily. The largest on record is the earliest, 1.08% in 2017. It fell to about 0.75–0.76% in 2019/2020 and to 0.5% for both tranches under the 2021 authorization, then jumped back to 1.0% in 2026, just short of 2017, a year after one with no issuance at all.
The 2026 vote count shows real dissent, and not only on the ESOP:
| Resolution | Approve | Disapprove |
|---|---|---|
| Profit distribution 2025 (50% cash dividend) | 77.71% | 22.28% |
| 2026 business plan | 99.94% | 0.05% |
| ESOP 2026 share issuance | 71.92% | 28.04% |
Source: SCS, Minutes of the 2026 AGM, vote-counting results (official filing).
A roughly 1.0% dilution approved with 28% of voting shares against it doesn't look like a rubber stamp. It's a real, contested decision. It isn't new for this board either. The 2017 AGM resolution that authorized SCS's first tranche passed with only 81.67% approval and 17.35% "no opinion," after a shareholder asked why the company hadn't run an ESOP in the previous four years. The 2018 AGM's ESOP renewal cleared at almost the same margin: 83.73% approve, 16.25% "no opinion."
| Plan year | PBT target | Prior-year PBT actual |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 960bn | 939.63bn (2025) |
| 2025 | 860bn | 782.68bn (2024) |
Source: 2026 AGM Resolution (2026 plan, 2025 actual); 2025 AGM Resolution (2025 plan) vs. the 2026 minutes' 2025-actuals table (2024 actual). The 2025 plan implies a +9.9% increase over 2024's actual, not the "exactly 10.0%" sometimes claimed.
I read this as a board setting conservative targets, one of which (2025's, per the table above) was beaten by more than 9%, and asking for a modest, occasional top-up to keep staff. Reasonable people can still vote no on dilution, and 28% of this AGM's shares did.7. The Balance Sheet: Why I Think SCS Gets Through This
At the April 2026 AGM, per the live meeting notes, the board described SCS's cash position in blunt terms:
SCS's own Q2 2026 financial statements back that up with a reported figure: cash and short-term bank deposits stood at ₫1,746.3bn (₫71.91bn cash + ₫1,674.40bn deposits) as at 30 June 2026, up from ₫1,583.84bn at the start of the year.
Source: SCS - Q2/2026 Snapshot (this site), checked against the Q2 2026 financial statements.
Bottom Line
The MOU with ACV is real and officially confirmed, but confidential: the minutes say nothing about its terms or outcome. Treat it as a strong signal, not a won contract. The official minutes also say the Lufthansa MRO plan cannot yet be implemented because of two open issues, one of them a Military Service approval still being sought; it is not "ready to sign." By ACV's own plan, airlines move to Long Thanh gradually through late 2027, voluntarily at first. So in my opinion the December 2026 opening date matters less than headlines suggest: a smooth or a delayed opening is unlikely to swing SCS's near-term results. The bigger, live risk is jet fuel costs and Middle East carrier disruption. In my reading SCS's own bulletins explain it in more depth than the Long Thanh story, and it already shows in the Q1 and H1 2026 volumes, though revenue and profit after tax still rose in both periods. SCS is still overwhelmingly cash-rich. Its 2026 ESOP, a real dilution and nearly the largest single tranche by ratio in the nine years reviewed here, passed with 28% against rather than as a routine formality.