Kuala Lumpur Airport
| Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur 吉隆坡 国际 机场 கோலாலம்பூர் அனைத்துலக விமானநிலையம |
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| Characteristics | |
| ICAO code | WMKK |
| IATA code | KUL |
| Coordinates | |
| Height above MSL | 21.34 m (70 ft ) |
| Transport links | |
| Distance from the city center | 44 km south of Kuala Lumpur |
| Street | Autobahn, part of the North-South Autobahn |
| train | KLIA Ekspres |
| Local transport | Local trains , buses |
| Basic data | |
| opening | June 27, 1998 |
| operator | Malaysia Airports (Sepang) SDN BHD |
| surface | 1000 ha |
| Terminals | 2 |
| Passengers | 48,930,409 (2014) |
| Air freight | 753,899 t (2014) |
| Flight movements |
339,650 (2014) |
| Capacity ( PAX per year) |
about 45 million (2012) |
| Employees | 1800 at the airport operator |
| Runways | |
| 14R / 32L | 4000 m × 60 m asphalt / concrete |
| 14L / 32R | 4019 m × 60 m asphalt / concrete |
| 15/33 | 3960 m × 60 m asphalt / concrete |
The Kuala Lumpur International Airport (abbreviation: KLIA) is the largest Malaysian airport . It was opened on June 27, 1998 and is located in the Sepang district of the Malaysian state Selangor , 44 kilometers south of the capital Kuala Lumpur . The airport serves as a hub for the Malaysian airlines Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia .
Geography and transport links
The airport is located at the southern end of the so-called Multimedia Super Corridor , which is around 50 kilometers long , a special economic zone that extends from the north of Kuala Lumpur via the newly built cities of Putrajaya and Cyberjaya , the Formula 1 circuit in Sepang to the airport in Extends south. The airport was built on an area of former oil palm plantations . Even today he is surrounded by such plantations . More than seven million people, around a third of the Malaysian population, live within a radius of 100 km. Six of the ten largest cities in Malaysia are less than 100 km from the airport, Kuala Lumpur city center is 44 km away and the coast is 16 km away.
Although the airport is strategically located as a stopover or transfer point for flights from Europe to Indonesia , Australia , New Zealand and the Philippines , it competes with the neighboring Southeast Asian hubs, the airports in Singapore , Bangkok and Jakarta .
The KLIA Ekspres and KLIA Transit have been operating in downtown Kuala Lumpur since 2002 . Both depart from Kuala Lumpur's City Air Terminal, part of the main train station, and arrive on the lowest level in the main airport terminal . Several airlines offer their customers the option of checking in at the City Air Terminal. Checked baggage takes the KLIA Ekspres to the airport.
The KLIA Ekspres drives the 57 kilometer route without a break, while the KLIA Transit stops at three additional stations. The two terminus stations are equipped with platform screen doors which only open automatically when the train has stopped.
The airport is also connected to the city center by express buses operated by private companies. The final stops are Kuala Lumpur Sentral Central Station and Puduraya Bus Station .
Airport grounds
The airport area is currently around ten km² in size. Almost all airport facilities are located between the two parallel, four-kilometer runways, similar to Munich Airport . The two runways implemented so far run in a north-west-south-east direction.
The motorway-like expressway and the expressway line approach the airport from the north. The expressway makes a left curve at the height of the tower and is divided there into the various approaches to the terminal buildings and the other infrastructure facilities. Between these streets is the 132 meter high airport tower, the second highest tower in the world after Bangkok (132.2 m).
The central main terminal building with its characteristic tent roofs and the upstream pier terminal building , the contact pier - a building tube with piers - are located between the two runways and perpendicular to them. In front of this pier there are two taxiways that connect the two runways. To the south of this is the only, so far, cross-shaped satellite terminal, which is connected to the Contact Pier by a shuttle train (Aerotrain) and is used exclusively for handling international passengers.
To the west of the satellite there is now a large, square undeveloped area on which the second satellite building is to be erected in the future. South of the satellite are the cargo handling buildings , the handling building for low-cost airlines (low-cost carrier terminal) and, even further south, along the western runway, the hangars of the local Malaysia Airlines and kerosene tanks .
Between the satellite and the low-cost carrier terminal is a small control tower that is only responsible for monitoring aircraft movements on the apron .
history
backgrounds
The Malaysian government began planning a new, high-performance airport for the capital as early as 1990, as the old Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah airport in Subang had been chronically overloaded for a long time and offered no further expansion options; the biggest supporter of the project at the time was the then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad . The new airport was intended to cover the capacity requirements for the traffic volume for the next few decades.
Construction work and completion
The construction costs for the first expansion phase amounted to more than 3.5 billion US dollars (about 2.73 billion euros, price: November 10, 2006). The work was completed in just four years and six months - an airport of this size had never before been built in such a short construction period. Over 25,000 construction workers from different countries worked on what was then the largest construction site in Malaysia.
Before the first construction crews could move in, an orang-asli village (indigenous people) with 85 families had to be relocated to another area. So that they could continue to farm, they were allocated other agricultural areas to compensate. The fact that only this Orang Asli settlement existed in the area was a decisive location factor and made the settlement of the new airport there attractive.
The airport was officially opened on June 27, 1998. The ceremony was overshadowed by problems with the baggage handling system , which collapsed, and the systems of several passenger boarding bridges and parking position instruction screens of the visual docking guidance system crashed. As a result, long queues formed throughout the airport, and many pieces of luggage were lost or were only sent to their owners days later.
Situation today
In its first expansion stage, the airport extends over an area of ten km². From the beginning it was planned in such a way that there was the possibility of gradually expanding it up to a capacity of 80 million passengers per year. Today the capacity is around 25 million travelers, whereby in the first full year of operation (1999) only 13.2 million were handled.
Only 21 million passengers could be handled in 2004. Originally, around 35 million passengers were forecast for this year. The freight sector ranks significantly higher in a global comparison ( according to ACI , 29th place) than, for example, passenger transport (47th place) or the number of flight movements. This increased continuously from 2002 and in 2005 for the first time brought KLIA into the group of the world's 100 largest airports in this category.
See also: traffic figures
Terminal building
Main Terminal Building
The main terminal building is located between the two runways and has a rectangular floor plan. The roof consists of 39 square roof units, which make it possible to expand the hall quickly and cheaply by adding further building units.
The building consists of five levels one above the other. The lowest level is home to the airport train station, from which the KLIA Ekspres trains run every 15 to 20 minutes without stops and the KLIA Transit trains every 30 minutes with intermediate stops to Kuala Lumpurs Central Station . The entrances to the Pan Pacific Hotel and the parking garage , which is located between the main terminal building and the tower, are on the second level . All arriving passengers are processed on the third level, so that here, among other things, baggage claim belts, passport control , customs control , money changers as well as hotel and tour organizations are located. The fourth level mainly houses the baggage handling system. The facilities for departing passengers are located on the top, fifth floor.
One reaches the interior of the hall through one of the six entrances from the two-story approach road. The approach road is covered over a length of 350 meters. On the opposite side of the access road there is access to the airport's visitor terrace. There are six parallel check-in islands in the hall, each with 36 check-in counters . The airline ticket counters are located at the ends of the "islands".
Behind the passport control located on the fourth level, there is a connecting building that leads into the Contact Pier. There you can go straight to the Aerotrain station and take a train to the satellite terminal or go to the gates in the Contact Pier, which has gates on the fourth level for international flights and gates on the level below for national flights.
Incoming passengers on international flights enter the main terminal building through the central connecting building. There are ten baggage claim belts in a spacious hall behind passport control. In order to get into the publicly accessible area, customs control must be passed. Incoming passengers on domestic flights get directly from the third level of the pier building via the decentralized connecting building into the baggage claim hall (national) with its two baggage claim belts without going through passport control.
See also: Passenger Handling Processes
Pier Handling Building (Contact Pier)
The contact pier is an elongated building tube on which aircraft can dock on the passenger boarding bridges on both sides . There are three levels in the Contact Pier. To accommodate the Aerotrain station, the center of the Contact Pier is about twice wider than the rest of the building.
The Aerotrain station and the boarding gates for international flights are on the top level, the boarding gates for national flights on the third level below, and waiting rooms / boarding gates for flights on the second level, which is at apron level the aircraft are not parked in a parking position close to the building and therefore the passengers are driven there by buses . As everywhere in the airport, you have to go through the screening procedure to be able to enter a waiting room (waiting lounge).
Passengers on international flights use the central connecting building to get to the gates in the pier building.
Passengers who want to use a domestic flight do not go through the central building, but through an additional connecting building to get to the Contact Pier. This connecting building is on the third level and is reached via escalators or elevators from the check-in area of the national flights on the fifth level. It is to the east of the central connecting building and cannot be used by passengers on international flights, as it only connects the two buildings on the third level. An identical connecting building is to be built when the main terminal building is expanded to the west.
Throughout the building hose are moving walkways , called Travellators installed which shorten distances to distant boarding gates in time.
The small aircraft parking positions north of the contact pier can only be used by aircraft up to the size of a narrow-body aircraft . These positions have only one passenger boarding bridge per gate and can only be reached from the third level, the national area. All aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 747 can be parked in the parking positions south of the contact pier . These parking positions are equipped with two passenger boarding bridges and can either be used by a “Jumbo” (Boeing 747) or by two Boeing 737s at the same time.
See also: Passenger Handling Processes
Satellite terminal building (Satellite)
The satellite terminal is a three-story, cross-shaped building that only handles international flights and that covers levels two to four. The passengers are brought from the Contact Pier to the satellite by Aerotrain. 19 of the 26 aircraft parking positions near the building are equipped with two passenger boarding bridges , so that boarding and alighting is guaranteed even for large aircraft. Except for the wing of the building with the Aerotrain route (only five gates) there are seven gates on each of the building wings. In order to be able to enter the waiting room of a gate, you have to go through the screening system. The waiting rooms are separated from the sidewalks and moving walks in the middle of the building wings by a glass wall .
In the middle of the building, the airport's architect, Kishō Kurokawa , had a glass cylinder built in which tropical rainforest trees and plants grow in order to bring back a piece of nature. The forest is supposed to bring passengers to Malaysia with its fascinating flora and fauna. This piece of tropical rainforest was not planted, but mostly transplanted from an existing rainforest. In the middle of the building, around the forest - are u. a. the Aerotrain station, shops, restaurants, relaxation rooms and four panoramic elevators.
This level, called mezzanine , only exists in the middle of the building and at the ends of the building wings. Only in the wing of the building, in which the Aerotrains operate on the level below, was the mezzanine level built in full length and width to make space for the transit hotel and the huge Malaysia Airlines lounge . Because of this level, the curved gable roof in this wing of the building cannot be seen from the gates as in the other wings of the building. On the mezzanine level there are more shops, quiet and smoking rooms, restaurants, business centers and the lounges of some airlines for their frequent flyers and first-class passengers.
If an aircraft is not in a parking position near the building, passengers are led from the gate through the crossings over the service road to the passenger boarding bridges. Before entering the passenger boarding bridges, passengers are brought to the apron level via stairs and taken to the aircraft in buses .
In order to also be able to handle the Airbus A380 quickly, five gates will be adapted to the requirements of this “super jumbo”. In order to ensure quick boarding and disembarking, the converted gates will be equipped with a third passenger boarding bridge and the parts of the fourth level at the ends of the building will be used to separate certain groups of passengers (e.g. first-class passengers) in the building . The home carrier Malaysia Airlines itself currently has 6 units of this type of aircraft.
Passenger handling processes
Passengers on international and domestic flights are handled separately. Only the check-in areas are not spatially separated. Two examples of the handling sequence are listed below (see scheme):
- Passenger wants to go to the gate in the satellite building:
- Main building, level 5: road access, check-in (1), level 4: passport control (3), approx. 100 m to the pier building
- Pier building, level 4: straight ahead to the aerotrain station
- Aerotrain ride
- Satellite building, level 3: a maximum of 500 m to a boarding gate in one of the five building wings
- Transit passenger wants to leave the pier building (national / domestic flight) for an international flight in the satellite building:
- Pier building, level 3: Gate G, straight ahead to passport control (3) on the right, level 4: Aerotrain station
- Aerotrain ride
- Satellite building, level 3: a maximum of 500 m to a boarding gate in one of the five building wings
Terminal building for low-cost airlines (LCCT)
The Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) is a terminal building that is specially adapted to the needs of low-cost airlines .
From 2006 to 2014 it was located between the two runways, northeast of Cargo City, 20 kilometers by road from the main terminal building. A bus called NadiKLIA shuttled between the main terminal building and the LCCT. This LCCT went into operation on March 23, 2006 after a nine-month construction period. It was designed for a maximum capacity of 10 million passengers. The 35,290 m² L-shaped building was constructed at a minimal cost of "only" 108 million Malaysian ringgit (about 27 million euros). This could only be achieved by reducing the levels to a single level and doing without a large number of facilities, such as B. boarding bridges, apron buses, elevators and escalators can be reached. In addition, all passengers must walk to the aircraft.
By 2009 the terminal was expanded to a capacity of 30 million passengers per year by increasing the area of the building.
On May 2, 2014, the newly built KLIA 2 Terminal was opened, which completely takes over the function of the previous LCCT. The terminal has a direct connection to the KLIA railway station with the KLIA Ekspres Train and the KLIA Transit Train. The journey time is 3 minutes, which, in contrast to the old bus connection between the KLIA-LCCT, enables a quick change between the two terminals. The main user of the building is the local AirAsia .
For this new terminal, a completely new area was built west of the airport. With this expansion, a third runway was also built. The previous LCCT is now used as a warehouse.
Advance Cargo Center
MAS Kargo, the freight subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines, operates a modern freight handling building in the south of the airport, between the two runways and next to the Low Cost Carrier Terminal. In its current size, it is designed for a capacity of one million tons of air freight per year, but can be expanded for over three million tons.
The building is equipped with the safest, most modern and most effective facilities and has also been designed to store huge amounts of air cargo, which is essential for a cargo hub.
Architecture / building interior
The Japanese architecture firm Kisho Kurokawa Architect and Associates designed the terminal buildings under the direction of the likewise Japanese architect Kishō Kurokawa in cooperation with the Malaysian architecture firm Akitek Jururancang and at the same time created detailed guidelines for height, appearance, materials used, planting, signage and lighting for all buildings in the Airport area - also for future ones. The construction of the airport was carried out by the Japanese construction company Taisei Corporation under the Malaysian umbrella company KL International Airport Berhad .
The roof structure in the main terminal building consists of 39 identical square roof units, which are modified forms of tent roofs . Each roof unit consists of two interconnected shells, a so-called hyperbolic paraboloid . These shells are stabilized by four steel supports, which also form the roof ridges . Each of these four steel pillars consists of three steel tubes that drift apart and together again, between which light can flood into the check-in hall. The steel supports rest on four conical columns lined with granite and converge at the top of the roof. At the connections ( capitals ) between columns and steel supports, lamps illuminate the ceiling, which is clad with imitation wood. Instead of transferring the load of the roof structure to the conical columns, the team of architects could also have decided to stabilize the structure with tension members between the column capitals . A big advantage of the conical columns, however, is that they have enough space inside to accommodate rain and ventilation pipes and other pipes. According to Kurokawa, the roof construction should clarify elements of Malaysian architecture, lean on the country's Islamic background and also symbolize the progressiveness and modernity of the Southeast Asian state.
The wings of the satellite handling building have a gable roof , which consists of two sloping roof surfaces. The roof splits in front of the glass cylinder with the rainforest. The two roof surfaces merge to the right or left into one of the roof surfaces of the two adjacent building wings. Like the cylinder itself, the four triangular gaps in the roof that result from this split shortly before the middle of the building with the rainforest are glazed. The cross-section of the roof surfaces has the shape of an extremely elongated semicircle or a crescent moon. This shape enables an extremely stable roof structure. The roof is supported by four-part steel columns from the center of the building and additional smaller beams in the waiting rooms. In the pier handling building, the engineers preferred a semicircular monopitch roof . There the roof is supported by two steel girders that are divided into four at the height of the fourth level.
The rainforest in the middle of the satellite is located in a slightly sloping glass cylinder that is open at the top . This cylinder is supported by a ring consisting of three steel tubes, 20 meters high. This ring, in turn, is carried out of the building by twelve pairs of steel girders.
The ceilings are clad with imitation wood, which gives the buildings a luxurious feel. In addition to the main check-in building, there are irregular light spots in the ceiling that look like stars at night. The roofs of all buildings are covered with steel painted in dark khaki . All walls and concrete pillars are covered with neutral, white plastic sheets. Both in the Satellite and in the Contact Pier, the waiting rooms for the boarding gates are separated from the walkways and driveways in the middle of the building by a glass wall . The huge panorama windows, which extend from the ceiling to the floor, are slanted in all buildings so that the rays of the sun hit the windows at a small angle of incidence , thus minimizing the heating of the inside of the building. In all buildings the floors are covered with gray granite slabs and the waiting rooms with purple carpeting. Around the supporting pillars, there are Islamic architectural elements in the form of various formations with red, green and blue colored Italian granite.
Signage / orientation
Uniform signage is used in all airport buildings.
In white letters on blue signs, viewed from left to right, there is first an arrow indicating the direction, then a pictogram , a vertical green or yellow bar and, on the far right, the information in Malay (above) and English (below). Incoming passengers without an onward flight follow the signs with the yellow bar, they lead the passengers from the gate to passport control and into the arrivals hall. Departing passengers or transit passengers follow the signs with a green bar to get to their respective gate. For some time now, in addition to Malay and English, the most important signs have also been labeled with Arabic , Chinese and Japanese information.
To simplify orientation, the gates have - depending on the building, part of the building (only contact pier) and building level (only contact pier) - a letter in front of the gate number. The boarding gates in hot Satellite C . Gates in the eastern wing of the Contact Pier have the suffixes B (international) and H (national), in the western wing of the building A and G respectively . The letters D , E and F have been kept free for other terminal buildings such as the second satellite building.
Airport infrastructure
Airport train (Aerotrain)
The Aerotrain is an airport-internal train , similar to the SkyLine at Frankfurt Airport . Two trains, each consisting of three wagons, shuttle between the satellite terminal and the Contact Pier and are in operation around the clock. Every three minutes there is a train that takes less than two minutes to complete. It holds 250 passengers and can carry around 3000 passengers per hour and direction. The maximum speed of the vehicles in regular operation reaches up to 55 km / h.
The Aerotrain trains run automatically and without a driver. Platform screen doors on the platforms prevent passengers from getting onto the tracks. The two stops in the satellite and pier buildings are designed so that arriving passengers can first get off on one side and only a short time later the doors on the other side are opened to allow departing passengers to board ( Spanish solution ). To reduce noise, the routes in both stops are tunnelled in glass bowls.
The vehicles were supplied by Bombardier and run like buses with rubber-tyred wheels on a concrete roadway , which however has a guide beam in the middle that also serves as a conductor rail.
The railway line leads under the taxiways and then rises again on both sides to the level of the stops. The route is two-lane over its full length, the points for the aerotrains that are to be used in the future for the second satellite building are already in place. In the Contact Pier, the station for the Aerotrains that will later approach the second satellite is already in the shell. However, it is currently being used as a retail space. Since the wagons of the Aerotrain are serviced in the stations, there is no branch line to a maintenance station .
Baggage Handling System
Today's baggage handling system
The baggage handling system , which operates 24 hours a day, enables passengers to check in anytime and anywhere. The facility uses state-of-the-art systems, such as sorting baggage using barcodes, quadruple security checks and high-speed conveyor belts . Nevertheless, there are often technical problems - like on the opening day of the airport.
The system can store a maximum of 1200 pieces of baggage from early check-in . Some of the 33-kilometer-long conveyor belts run through a 1.1-kilometer tunnel between the main terminal and the satellite terminal.
New baggage handling system
Since the baggage handling system was plagued by enormous problems and frequent breakdowns, the Malaysian Ministry of Transport ordered a completely new baggage handling system worth over 20 million euros from Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S) on March 19, 2006 . The plant was scheduled to go into operation in September 2007.
As at many major airports, the new system will use modern high-speed container conveyor technology, in which the items of luggage are transported in individual trays. With this method, the transported goods can be better controlled and tracked even at high speeds, unlike conventional belt conveyor technology.
Runways / runway system
The two runways implemented so far are each four kilometers long, 60 meters wide, offset by one kilometer and allow aircraft of all sizes to take off and land. Since the lifts are about 2.5 km apart, they allow simultaneous operation, i.e. independent use of both slopes. A taxiway runs parallel to each runway, and there is even a second taxiway in sections. There are nine taxiways leading to and from each runway, four of which are rapid taxiways at a 30 ° angle. In contrast to vertical taxiways, these taxiways allow landed aircraft to leave the runway at higher speeds and thus increase the cycle rate of landing machines. Today's runway system can handle a maximum capacity of 120 flight movements per hour. To reach this mark, one of the two runways is usually used for take-offs and the other for landings.
Ideally, as many aircraft as possible land on the runway that ends at the level of the passenger handling building. Starting machines take off from the other runway, the starting point of which is also at the level of the terminals. This reduces the rolling time to a minimum.
In order to adapt the runways to the requirements of the Airbus A380 , work began at the end of 2005 to add the prescribed 7.5 meter wide paved shoulder areas to both runways. In addition, the starting areas at the ends of the slopes were re-concreted.
The master plan provides for a total of four, but optionally also a fifth runway. These are expected to be located west of today's airport area. Each of these tracks is planned to be 4,000 meters long.
Planning
Second expansion stage / advanced planning
The original plans were for the second satellite building to go into operation in 2009. Its construction, however, was postponed in favor of the low-cost carrier terminal. In the near future, a third runway should also be built west of the current airport area.
With the construction of the second satellite building, the aerotrain's lane between the Contact Pier or the first satellite building and the new satellite passenger building will also be completed. The tunnels under the taxiways are already in the shell . The pier building can be extended by 170 meters on both sides. This makes additional capacities available. This expansion increases the capacity to 45 million passengers per year and marks the end of the second expansion phase in 2012.
Old plans included extending the KLIA Transit to the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) in order to offer passengers a fast connection between the various terminal buildings and the city. A bus line called NadiKLIA is currently shuttling between the two terminal buildings. A single trip on these buses costs 1.20 ringgit.
In mid-2007 the government gave the green light to the airport company's plans to build a new terminal building for low-cost airlines. The new passenger building will be designed for 30 million passengers a year and will be located near the main terminal building, which means that there will be no need to build a train route between the two terminal buildings.
The plans were finalized until September 2007. These also include the expansion of today's LCCT to 15 million passengers annually. With the commissioning of the new passenger building, all handling processes will be relocated and the current building will be converted into a freight building.
In mid-2006, YTL Corp Bhd presented plans for a high-speed link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to the Malaysian government. Together with Siemens Malaysia Sdn Bhd transportation systems, YTL Corp Bhd managed the project for the existing KLIA Ekspres rapid transit system to the center of Kuala Lumpur. The plans include a stop at the airport, possibly using the existing standard-gauge route to Kuala Lumpur. The rest of the route would include train stations in Malacca , Johor Bahru , in central Singapore and at the city-state's international airport . If the project is implemented, Velaro E trains with speeds of up to 350 km / h (series similar to the German ICE ) from the manufacturer Siemens will cover the 325 km route in just 90 minutes (previously nine hours) and thus the shuttle Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines flights face serious competition. The project costs are calculated at 8 billion ringgit (approx. 1.9 billion euros).
In May 2007, the state government of the neighboring state of Negeri Sembilan approved the plan to extend the KLIA Ekspres via Seremban to the touristic town of Port Dickson . This section could also be integrated into the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed line.
Final stage (master plan)
In the final fourth expansion stage in 2020, the master plan provides for a total of four (optionally five) runways, two handling complexes each with a pier and two satellite buildings, which are designed for 100 million passengers per year. The required areas are already available and not populated. The new runways are to be built to the west of the current airport area, the second handling complex will be built mirror-inverted from today's main handling building, on the other side of the approach road. Since the airport can present a 20 percent passenger growth rate at the moment, these plans do not seem utopian.
Airlines and Destinations
Kuala Lumpur Airport is served by 69 airlines (including 6 cargo airlines) from around the world, which in turn fly to 112 destinations on five continents . With around 1.7 million passengers annually, the route to Singapore is the busiest. The most important destination in Europe is London, with around 300,000 passengers per year, while the route to Frankfurt only has around 70,000 passengers in the same period.
The Malaysian airlines Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia , the first low-cost airline on the Asian continent, use Kuala Lumpur International Airport as a route hub. Malaysia Airlines flies to destinations on all continents, while Air Asia's route network is mainly within the Southeast Asian region. Both airlines maintain a dense network of domestic routes. Both airlines account for the majority of the passenger volume with 49.1% and 19.1% respectively.
Many of the major European airlines, such as KLM and Finnair , also fly to the Malaysian airport. British Airways - similar to Lufthansa - stopped the flights shortly after the airport opened due to a lack of customers. Lufthansa took the airport back into its program in June 2004 and flew the more than 10,000 kilometer long route from Frankfurt to Kuala Lumpur in an Airbus 340 in around 12 hours. The route was discontinued anyway and in the meantime resumed and flown to via Bangkok.
In the end, Lufthansa stopped the route again in 2016.
In order to bring new airlines to Kuala Lumpur, the airport waives them landing and parking fees if they commit to flying to the airport for five years. The state bears the costs incurred. But Kuala Lumpur is also attractive to many airlines because of the already low landing fees. The landing fee for a Boeing 747 is US $ 1,052 - just over half as much as in neighboring Singapore, where an airline has to pay US $ 1,883 for the same type of aircraft at Changi Airport . The many perks resulted in the return of some airlines. Also Air Mauritius decided its Asian hub from Singapore to move to Kuala Lumpur. Despite the efforts of the airport management, neither a North nor a South American passenger airline flies to the airport.
Some airlines fly to Kuala Lumpur Airport with an Airbus 380-800, for example Emirates flies daily to Dubai and Malaysia Airlines to London-Heathrow, Paris CDG and Hong Kong.
Traffic figures
| Year of operation | Passenger volume | Freight volume in tons | Flight movements |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 14,021,531 | 430.223 | 129,810 |
| 2000 | 15,648,029 (+ 11.6%) | 524,442 (+ 21.9%) | 125,657 (−3.2%) |
| 2001 | 14,707,125 (−1.4%) | 445,832 (−13.5%) | 113,634 (−9.6%) |
| 2002 | 16,398,230 (+ 12.8%) | 531,982 (+ 19.3%) | 127,952 (+ 12.6%) |
| 2003 | 17,454,564 (+ 6.4%) | 589,982 (+ 10.9%) | 129,947 (+ 9.3%) |
| 2004 | 21,058,572 (+ 20.6%) | 655,368 (+ 11.1%) | 165,115 (+ 18%) |
| 2005 | 23,213,412 (+ 20.4%) | 655,944 (+ 12.6%) | 182,386 (+ 10.4%) |
| 2006 | 24,142,134 (+ 4.0%) | 670,790 (+ 2.2%) | 183,672 (+1.5%) |
| 2007 | 26,938,970 (+ 11.6%) | 649,197 (−3.3%) | 193,982 (+ 5.6%) |
| 2008 | 27,529,355 (+ 2.2%) | 667,495 (+ 2.8%) | 209,681 (+ 8.1%) |
| 2009 | 29,682,093 (+ 7.8%) | 601,620 (−9.9%) | 225,251 (+ 7.4%) |
| 2010 | 34,087,636 (+ 14.8%) | 674,902 (+ 15.4%) | 245,650 (+ 8.3%) |
| 2011 | 37,704,510 (+ 10.6%) | 669,849 (−0.7%) | 269,509 (+ 9.7%) |
| 2012 | 39,887,866 (+ 5.8%) | 673,107 (+ 0.5%) | 283,352 (+ 5.1%) |
| 2013 | 47,498,157 (+ 19.1%) | 680,982 (+1.2%) | 326,678 (+ 15.3%) |
Incidents
- On August 23, 2001 was Boeing 747-368 of Saudi Arabian Airlines ( air vehicle registration HZ-AIO ) during taxiing directed into a monsoon drainage ditch to the departure gate, where the bug which contributed damage and the aircraft was damaged beyond repair. According to the reports, the machine was operated by a ground mechanic. The six crew members suffered minor injuries.
Others
- West of the contact pier is the so-called Bunga Raya VVIP Complex , a building that was built for VVIP guests (Very Very Important Persons). The building is also used by the Malaysian government for state receptions or royal family trips.
- 85,000 square meters of retail space are available for retail. The airport thus outperforms many of its Asian competitors. The operating company Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad earns 65% of the proceeds in the non-airside sector, around half of which comes from renting out the retail space.
- Outside the main terminal there is a five-star hotel with 450 beds, the Pan Pacific Hotel KLIA .
- There are two fire stations on the airport premises. The fire engines are equipped with a total of 14 modern airfield fire engines. The larger of the two airport fire brigade stations is located east of the contact pier, the smaller one near the hangar in the south of the airport area.
- There is one of the only two chambers in the world for explosive goods on the airport premises (the second is located at Munich Airport ). In this chamber, which cost 1.6 million ringgit, z. B. explosive freight containers are defused in a controlled manner.
- The name Kuala Lumpur International Airport was previously used as an alternative name for the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport (SZB) in Subang Jaya .
- There is the airport's own television program KLIA TV , which is broadcast in many places in the airport, for example near seating groups. The program consists of entertainment, news and documentary programs, most of which are purchased from well-known television channels such as National Geographic .
- Similar to Frankfurt Airport, there is also an airport newspaper , the KLIA Times .
- Smoking is prohibited in all airport buildings, but there are three smoking rooms in the satellite and in the pier.
- During the SARS crisis that raged across Asia and resulted in a huge drop in passengers at airports, landing fees for aircraft were reduced by 50%. With this price reduction, it was hoped that the airlines would continue to fly to the airport despite the lack of customers. The IATA welcomed this decision.
- Malaysia Airlines is building a new hangar in the south of the airport for the maintenance of their future Airbus A380. It will be the world's largest column-free hangar structure.
- Since its opening, the airport has received numerous awards from well-known organizations, such as the online portal Skytrax and the aviation organization International Air Transport Association . Because of its excellent service, Skytrax users voted KLIA as the world's best airport in the category of 15-25 million passengers per year . In a global comparison, KLIA is on par with airports such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Seoul in terms of service (4th place). Kuala Lumpur is the only airport that has been awarded the Green Globe Certificate 21 for its commitment to environmental protection .
See also
literature
- Markus Binney: Airport Builders. Academy Editions, Chichester 1999, ISBN 0-471-98445-0 , p. 121.
- Francisco Ascenio Cerver: Contemporary Architecture. Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-8290-2845-8 , p. 32.
- Manuel Cuadra : World Airports. Junius Verlag, Frankfurt 2002, ISBN 3-88506-519-3 , p. 52.
- Brigitte Rothfischer: Airports in the world. GeraMond Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7654-7211-5 , p. 100.
- Christian Schönwetter, Kerstin Graf, Jan Hausberg: AIRPORT DESIGN. Daab, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-937718-32-X , pp. 192-199.
Web links
- Web presence of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (English)
- Web presence of Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (English)
- Website of the airport express trains KLIAEkspres and KLIATransit (English)
- Unofficial airport website (English)
- Detailed site about the airport (English)
- Information about the terminal building on www.visit-malaysia.de (German)
- Kuala Lumpur Airport. In: Structurae
Individual evidence
- ↑ Website of the airport operator
- ↑ a b c KLIA Fact Sheet. (PDF; 3 MB) KLIA, 2015, accessed on April 4, 2015 (English).
- ^ AIP Malaysia. (PDF; 149 kB) In: aip.dca.gov.my. Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia, June 2, 2011, p. WMKK AD 2-5 , accessed April 5, 2015 .
- ^ AIP Supplement Malaysia. (PDF; 13.3 MB) Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia, February 20, 2014, p. 2 , accessed on April 5, 2015 (English).
- ↑ Source for construction costs ( Memento of the original dated November 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ kiat.net source for resettlement ( memento of the original dated November 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Report on problems with the first baggage handling system
- ↑ express / Rail Link (KLIA). Retrieved December 14, 2011 .
- ↑ AirAsia website with information about the LCCT ( Memento from July 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ LCCT international arrival hall ahead of schedule. The Star , December 9, 2008, accessed April 4, 2015 .
- ↑ Building A Better klia2 For The Future Of Low Cost Air Travel. KLIA, November 29, 2011, accessed April 4, 2015 .
- ↑ MAHB to convert LCCT into a cargo warehouse. klia2.info, July 24, 2014, accessed April 4, 2015 .
- ↑ Siemens equips Kuala Lumpur airport with a baggage handling system. airliners.de, April 19, 2006, accessed April 5, 2015 .
- ↑ The Star - Malaysian English-language daily newspaper - New terminal building for low-cost airlines ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Star - Malaysian English-language daily newspaper - Location of the new terminal building for low-cost airlines
- ↑ The Star - Malaysian English-language daily newspaper - bullet train between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore
- ↑ The Star - Malaysian English-language daily newspaper - Extension of the KLIA Ekspres airport train ( memento of the original from June 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Statistics from the airport operator ( memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Asiatimes.ru - Malaysia waives fees for new flights - Thailand sees little impact from plan to build KL traffic
- ↑ All figures are taken from ACI publications ( Memento des original from September 10, 2002) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Accident report B-747-300 HZ-AIO , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on November 1, 2018.
- ↑ Saudi Arabian airliner taxis into ditch in Malaysia, crushing nose but causing no injuries . August 24, 2001. Archived from the original on February 12, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 12, 2015.
- ↑ The Star - Malaysian English language daily newspaper - Airport operator revenue
- ↑ IATA: " Kuala Lumpur Joins Ranks of Airports Responding to SARS Crisis - Hong Kong Relief Misses the Mark " ( Memento of the original from October 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ Malaysia Airports - KLIA Continues Pursuit of Environmental Excellence With 'Walk The Environment' Campaign
