AirAsia Move to Terminal 1 KKIA Delayed

15th Apr 2015

The Malaysian low-cost airliner AirAsia X will be moved to Terminal 1 of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport in the Sabah state, but when exactly is still not known as the government of this country has postponed this move to a later date.

Datuk Ab Aziz Kaprawi, Deputy Transport Minister of Malaysia explained that the government and MAHB (Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhard), which manages the KKIA airport, are currently negotiating several matters that AirAsia has brought up before making the move.

The Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhard currently manages 20 airports in Malaysia, as well as three international ones: Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi; Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, both in India; and Sabina Gökçen International Airport, Istanbul in Turkey.

About this, Ab Aziz said:

The Transport Ministry had earlier stipulated the date for AirAsia to move to Terminal 1 effective on 1st January this year. However, AirAsia had postponed the transfer and requested several matters to the government.

Why Wasn’t the Move Made Sooner?

This came out as a reply the deputy minister had regarding the questions and remarks Senator Datuk Chin Su Phin had this Wednesday during the Senate meeting.

Among other things Senator Chin asked was why is AirAsia’s transfer from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 of the KKIA taking so long.

As a reply, Ab Aziz said that one of the requests AirAsia made was to keep the passenger service charge at RM32 that they had in Terminal 2, instead of charging to RM65, as is on Terminal 1.

He said:

The government had to abide with the international regulations which stipulated the charge should be the same for all the flight operators.

Ab Aziz also said that AirAsia made a request to use their own check-in system and not the one provided by MAHB at Terminal 1.

Concerning this, he said the government is pondering how best to integrate AirAsia’s check-in system with the current one at the terminal since the airliner’s system cannot be used by other carriers.

AirAsia will move to Terminal 1 from Terminal 2 of the KKIA airport based on the National Economic Council’s decision and the report by the Auditor General.

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