The airport is located in the Tân Bình district within the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area.

Pan Am schedules from 1973 show that during the last days of South Vietnam, Boeing 747 service was being operated four times a week to San Francisco via Guam and Manila.

[10] Continental Airlines operated up to 30 Boeing 707 military charters per week to and from Tan Son Nhut Airport during the 1968–74 period.

On 29 October 2006, this service was switched from San Francisco to Los Angeles with a stop in Hong Kong, operating as UA 867 (also using a 747–400).

[24] The first phase of an urgent expansion to the terminal was finished in December 2016 with the addition of 2 new jet bridges and other facilities.

[25] Upon the completion of phase two in 2018, the terminal has a floor area of 115,834 m2 (1,246,830 sq ft)[26] and 26 boarding gates, and can handle 13 million passengers annually.

In a report submitted to the Vietnamese National Assembly in 2015, legislators deemed continued expansion of Tan Son Nhat problematic in five aspects.

An estimated US$9.1 billion was reportedly needed for a new 4,000 m runway, a new passenger terminal and other facilities at Tan Son Nhat.

Secondly, Tan Son Nhat airspace overlaps with that of Bien Hoa Airport, which is currently reserved for national defense purpose.

At the same time, Tan Son Nhat also acts as a strategic location in national defense; therefore, the airport cannot be used entirely for civic air transport.

Additionally, due to its urban location, aside from increasing ground traffic stress in its access points, the airport cannot operate between midnight and 5AM in accordance to the International Civil Aviation Organization sustainable development goals, further limiting its capability.

"[141] The cost of construction is too high in the midst of already-suppressed national debt, stressing the people without fully-diagnosed value.

Ho Chi Minh City hired an independent French consultant firm ADPi to evaluate the suggestions.

Stage One calls for the construction of two parallel runways and a terminal with a capacity of 25 million passengers per year, due to be completed in 2020.

As such, Tan Son Nhat would only serve flights under 1000 km operated by Code C aircraft or smaller.

[144] Because Long Thanh will not be ready for service until at least 2025, Tan Son Nhat must expand to meet the increasing demand.

Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Trịnh Đình Dũng agreed to proceed a US$860 million upgrade proposal for final review before submitting to the government.

[145] The decision was controversial due to the fact that the golf course immediately north of SGN would remain untouched despite the urgent need of airport expansion.

[146] The Minister of Transport Trương Quang Nghĩa explained that the airport could not be expanded northward due to costs and environmental impact.

[147] On 12 June 2017, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc requested the Ministry of Transport to research the prospect of constructing a third runway at Tan Son Nhut International Airport.

The French consulting company ADP Ingénierie (ADPi) was subsequently hired to provide a second opinion for the project.

Without a new runway, Tan Son Nhat has a maximum capacity of 51 million passengers per year – a number ADPi predicted SGN to reach in 2025, in time for the opening of Long Thanh.

[148] However, an independent consultancy of Ho Chi Minh City believed it could reach up to 80 million by the time Long Thanh was supposed to open, in accordance with reports by Boeing or the International Air Transport Association.

As such, they proposed a three-phase northward expansion plan that would see a new runway and two new terminals to increase the airport's capacity to 70 million passengers per year.

[149] On 28 March 2018, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc ultimately selected the ADPi proposal as the basis for the expansion of the airport.

This proposal includes a new Terminal 3 with a designed capacity of 20 million passengers per year south of Runway 07R/25L, additional facilities in the north area where a golf court currently occupies as well as improvements and constructions of access points for the airport.