Malaysia’s klia2 opens with Malindo Air taking the honour as the first flight to officially land

By Anthony Tan – Virgin Communications

email: anthonykhtan@yahoo.co.uk




klia2 looks nice with the night lightings and could be improved further

 

 

At last the controversial klia2 is commercially opened for use slightly passed midnight on May 2. The RM4 billion klia2 is not a low-cost carrier terminal (LCCT) per se but Malaysia’s first hybrid airport about 2km from the old KLIA.

 

This purpose-built airport will be able to cater for 45 million passengers annually is the world largest purpose-built low cost terminal for low cost carriers and is added to cater for low cost premier or low cost plus or whatever new word we can coined up with.

 

There are some low-cost carriers (LCC) providing Business Class like Malindo Air and these airlines need to provide extra facilities and comfort for those who willing to pay for the extras. Therefore, klia2 has to allocate extra facilities and space for Business Class services.

Malindo Air flight OD 1027 from Kota Kinabalu took the honour to be the first flight to officially land at the new klia2 airport at about 12.05am with 110 passengers on board a Boeing 737-900ER with a welcoming reception organised by Malaysia Airports.

 

 

Present at klia2 to witness the inaugural flight landing were Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) chairman Tan Sri Dr Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah, MAHB Managing Director Tan Sri Bashir Ahmad and Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) Director General Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Malindo Air CEO Chandran Rama Muthy and many other invited guests and a large delegation from members of the media.



Picture taken in front of Malindo Air check-in counter. From left to right: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) chairman Tan Sri Dr Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah, MAHB Managing Director Tan Sri Bashir Ahmad, Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, Malindo Air CEO Chandran Rama Muthy and Dato' Azmi Murad is the Senior General Manager of Operation Services in Malaysia Airports (in white shirt on the extreme right) 
 

 

Cebu Pacific Airways first batch of passengers departing for Manila
from klia2 

Another flight by Cebu Pacific Airways was supposed to arrive after Flight OD 1027 but was delayed. Cebu Pacific was also to be the first flight to depart from the new airport for Manila with 147 passengers. The 147 Manila bound passengers will be recorded as the first batch to check-in at the new airport but unfortunately their flight is very much delayed.

The low cost carriers which be operating from klia2 are Malindo Air, Lion Air, Tiger Air, Cebu Pacific Airways and AirAsia. AirAsia group of airlines will start operating from klia2 with effect from May 9.


According to Malaysia Airports, there will be 5,000 – 7,000 passenger traffic movements daily during the first week and when AirAsia starts its operations, it is expected to have 50,000 passenger traffic movements daily in total by all the airlines.

 

Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) had some writing on the wall at the new airport which may be seen a silent protest to the critics while some may see it as an information board.

 

klia2 has undergone some major design changes in order to address the requirements of all airport users and stakeholders, and to ensure a satisfactory level of comfort and safety for the passengers. MAHB also take into consideration to provide total international passengers segregation for the arrival and departure on different floors. This will reinforce the security and safety and further to address the human trafficking issues.  

 

With all the changes to cater for the anticipated requirement in next few years ahead and the lesson learned by MAHB from the short coming for the present LCCT, the land area was expanded from 4.85 million m² to 11.19 million m².

With MAHB research and feed back to address the new requirement the first anticipated a two-storey terminal was transformed into a nine-storey building. These changes have increases in terminal floor space from 150 000 m² to 257 000 m² which is four (4) times the size of the old LCCT.

With the endless complaint of the chaotic traffic congestion from the public using the present LCCT, MAHB has extended the access road leading to klia2 from 8 km to 15 km with an elevated road to the terminal building from 1.5km to 5.4km to minimised traffic congestion.

A multi-storey carpark with 6,000 parking bays was another lesson learned from the from the old LCCT which was infested with endless complaints like safety issues, long distant to walk to the terminal and worst when it is raining to name a few. The new carpark facility is convenient but it comes with a high priced, first hour charge is RM4 and parking for one day is RM46. If your car is clamp for parking as where you liked, be warned, to remove the clamp will make you RM100 poorer.

 

 

Klia2 is a BIG international standard airport and HERE is a friendly advice to traveller taking a flight at klia2 is “TO BE THERE EARLY”. It is a longer walk from the main door to your check-in counter as you have to walk passed rows of shoplots like in the shopping mall as compared to KLIA.

 

 

 

After checking in, it is another longer walk to your boarding gate, even with the walkalators. Don’t forget, if you are going on international flight, you have to clear the immigration and the security checks (for men, you have to remove your belt and remember hold on to your pants if it is loose one).

 

 

Here are some quick facts of the klia2:

It is equipped with a new klia2 control tower.

The runway is 3960m in length.

There 68 boarding gates with aerobridges.

The original early design for baggage handling system was a semi-automated but it is upgraded to a fully-automated to full fill the need of an up-to-date airport.

There are 220 shoplots with a wide cross-section to cater for the air travellers.

The ERL Express train has extended its services from Sentral/KLIA/klia2.

 

The pictures below show klia2 been designed with lots of space to accommodate the forecasted 45 million passengers annually and hope MAHB will keep it as designed and not to turn it into a Petaling Street or Pasar Malam with more kiosks and mini shoplets concept in the near future as it is been done to KLIA. There more than enough of shops for the shoppers and F and B outlets to served the airport users.