Good news, definitely. How about millions of potential new visitors into Penang? Good news for long-term property owners too. Anyway, this was what was shared by Malaysia Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng. He shared that within 12 -24 months, Penang will likely get a new low-cost carrier (LCC) airport to serve airlines like AirAsia. This is as per federal government’s plan to call for a bid by private companies to do so. Full report in FreeMalaysiaToday here. He also shared that the project would be fully funded by private companies as the federal government did not have enough funds to build a new airport for the time being. For everyone’s information, this was the earlier report about the Penang International Airport. It’s already at full capacity. The capacity is 6.5 million but the total arrivals have reached 7.1 million. He then shared this, “So we are forced to find new ways by cooperating with private parties such as AirAsia to carry out expansion works in the nearest time and also build a new LCC.”
Some background for everyone to note. PIA was last refurbished to handle 6.5million passengers and this was supposed to last Penang till 2020. It has handled 6.7 million visitors last year. The Penang government is looking at the potential of handling 15 million passengers in the future. Lim said that the LCC project would take place next to the PIA and share the same runway. He shared, “We have talked to AirAsia and Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad and the reception has been positive. It will be a public-private partnership. But before anything, we want to wait for the outcome of these talks first. LCC can be built quickly, say one to two years. As for the PIA main terminal, it might take longer. The concern now is when we expand, we must be able to recoup it with the volume of passengers to the airport.” Full report in FreeMalaysiaToday here.
Penang International Airport is currently the 3rd busiest airport in Malaysia. Kota Kinabalu airport is currently the second busiest as it handled 7.9 million visitors last year. Currently, the expansion or a new KK airport is already in the planning stage. Here’s that earlier report. Basically, airports must be expanded continuously because these are the connectivity for Malaysian cities with the world. It would be very bad for publicity if the passengers were to arrive for the first time to Malaysia and having to queue a few hours just to pass the immigration or even to take their luggages. In fact, the truth is, 12-24 months is not a short time. Let’s await the next announcement on who’s going to build it yeah. By the way, the 12-24 months start from the construction date yeah, not the announcement date. Happy following and happy Penangites.
written on 6 Aug 2018
Next suggested article: Penang’s 10.5km tunnel. 15 mins from Gurney Drive to PIA. Super.
