18 January 2019
A dedicated processing centre for departing airline crew, which is being built at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s (KUL) second terminal klia2, is almost 50 per cent completed.
In a statement today, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said the project was kicked off last October and the centre was expected to be operational by May this year.
“This initiative by MAHB aims to optimise the operational processes for the airlines, particularly AirAsia, the leading low-cost airline operating from klia2,” it said.
The new dedicated processing centre encompasses integrated processes known as Customs and Immigration Clearance (CIQ) that will reduce significantly the time taken by departing airline crew to reach the boarding gates.
“For domestic flights, the time will be reduced by 66 per cent while for international flights, the crew can save more than 40 per cent of the time to reach the gates compared with the current time,” said MAHB.
The dedicated processing centre will enable the crew to bypass the terminal building to get to the designated departure gates directly.
This synergistic collaboration between MAHB and AirAsia, with the cooperation of government agencies such as the Immigration Department of Malaysia and the Royal Malaysian Customs Department, would create a great impact for the airlines in terms of better operational efficiency and turnaround time, the airport operator said.
Group chief executive officer Raja Azmi Raja Nazuddin said MAHB was continuously providing support in all ways possible to its airline partners as it firmly believed in working together to achieve a single vision — to make KUL a leading hub in the region.
“We hope that the dedicated processing centre will benefit AirAsia in more ways than one as the largest low-cost airline at klia2.
“Apart from greatly reducing their crew travelling and processing time from the airline’s headquarters to the boarding gates, the faster processing time will also improve their punctuality and performance,” he said.
Raja Azmi commented that MAHB was also committed to assist its airline partners to grow, be it through new routes or additional flights.
In fact, he said, with the enhanced turn-around time, AirAsia had proposed new flight schedules which might increase the carrier’s flight frequency by up to 18 flights per week for some of its current routes.
He said MAHB was optimistic the RM3 million investment that was made for the new facility would serve airlines well in time to come.
Last year, klia2 received 31 million passengers, an increase of 5.3 per cent compared with 2017, he added. — Bernama
Source: https://www.malaymail.com
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