MEGA PROJECT

Project Name: Kuala Lumpur International Airport

Start Date: March 1993

Completion Date: June 1998

The planning of KLIA began in 1990 when the government decided that the existing Subang International Airport (now Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport) could not handle future demand. Malaysia's Former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad was a prime driver behind the project, which was seen as an important component of the Multimedia Super Corridor.

After the move to KLIA, Subang Airport's Terminal 1 building was demolished. In 2007 however, Malaysia Airports entered into agreement to redevelop Terminal 3 of the then Subang Airport and is currently undergoing major transformation to become Subang Skypark, an integrated airport for turboprop and chartered planes surrounded by residential area and business park.

With the airport site spanning 100 km², it is one of the largest airport sites in the world. It is built on a piece of agricultural land and required no demolition of private property. The master plan of Kuala Lumpur International Airport involves constructing five runways, and two terminals accompanied by two satellite terminals for each terminal over three phases. Phase One development includes constructing one main terminal accompanied by one satellite terminal that is enough to accommodate 25 million passengers and dual full service runways. Under the implementation of Phase One, sixty contact piers, twenty remote parking bays with eighty aircraft parking positions, four maintenance hangars and fire stations will be built. Implementation of phase two and three will be expansions of the airport to include increasing number of passengers. Ultimately, the airport will be able to handle 100 million passengers per annum once all three phases are implemented.

With the workforce of 25,000 workers working 24 hours a day, the airport was built within four and half years. The airport was officially inaugurated on 27 June 1998, a week ahead of Hong Kong International Airport, but flights were shifted from Subang only three days later on 30 June in time for the 1998 Commonwealth Games. The first domestic arrival was Malaysia Airlines flight MH1263 from Kuantan (Kuantan Airport) at 7:10 am and first international passenger jet arrival was Malaysia Airlines flight MH188 from Malé (Malé International Airport) at 7:30 am while the first domestic departure was Malaysia Airlines flight MH1432 to Langkawi (Langkawi International Airport) at 7:20 am and first international passenger jet departure was Malaysia Airlines flight MH84 to Beijing (Beijing Capital International Airport) at 9am.

 

The inauguration of the airport was marked with problems. Aerobridge and bay allocation systems broke down, queues formed throughout the airport, and baggage handling broke down, with lost bags and waits of over five hours^. Most of these issues were sorted out eventually, but the baggage handling system continued to be plagued with problems, and it was finally put up for a new complete replacement tender in 2007.

The airport also had to contend with the East Asian financial crisis, SARS, bird flu epidemic (Avian flu), the global financial crisis and recently the swine flu pandemic which decimated passenger traffic in Malaysia and the region. Passenger growth was negative during the financial crisis and airlines that had started flights to KLIA including All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Lufthansa (later reinstated) and Northwest Airlines, terminated their services due to unprofitability. The first phase of the airport was designed with a capacity of 25 million passengers per year but on the first full year of operations in 1999, it saw only 13.2 million. However, traffic did eventually increase with 21.1 million passengers recorded in 2004 and 23.2 million in 2005 — although this, too, fell short of the original estimate of 25 million by the year 2003.

The name Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) was previously used as an alternative name for the then Subang International Airport which is now known as Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport (SZB) in Subang.