KOTA KINABALU, June 24 – Senior airport manager Sunif Naiman said the nine-million passenger capacity of Kota Kinabalu International Airport’s (KKIA) Terminal 1 is under utilised by 55 per cent.
He said the airport -- designed to cater for a maximum of 3,200 passengers per peak hour (PPH) -- has only 1,764 PPH during peak period.
“The airport’s Terminal 1 and 2 recorded combined passenger movements of 6.5 million last year below our maximum capacity,” he told reporters during a media update prior to a fast-breaking dinner hosted by Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) at the airport on Friday.
“There are no plans to expand Terminal 1 at this stage due to under utilisation of the maximum passenger capacity,” Sunif said.
All airlines operations from KKIA’s Terminal 2 were shifted to the newer Terminal 1 last December in a move to consolidate operations into one terminal.
Sunif said from January to May this year, KKIA registered a -1.47 per cent decrease in domestic passenger movements and 26.6 per cent increase in international movements compared to the same period last year.
“At the same time, there is a decline in aircraft movements at KKIA over the past five months because many airlines had changed their aircraft, such as in the case of AirAsia after moving operations to Terminal 1 last December,” he said.
Sunif added an estimated 0.2 per cent rise of passengers is expected during the upcoming Raya holidays compared to about 552,000 passengers on average per month, and “we expect operations to run smoothly like in recent festive periods.” China’s Lucky Air and South Korean Jeju Air are due to launch new flights from Kunming to KK and Seoul Incheon to KK on July 6 and July 20 respectively. — Bernama
