Safety concerns have arisen over the construction of KLIA East at Labu which is claimed to be too close to the existing KLIA at Sepang, endangering public safety. Air Asia has vigorously denied this and yesterday launched a website and sent e-mails to passengers to explain its side of the story.

Air Asia has dubbed KLIA East “The Rakyat’s Terminal” and set up the special website to respond to critic isms of the new airport project.

wee choo keong The safety issue was highlighted yesterday in a press release by PKR MP Wee Choo Keong who asked: “Does [Air Asia CEO Tony Fernandes] realise that KLIA East will only be 10km away from KLIA in Sepang? Can’t he see the disasters and loss of precious lives waiting to happen?”

Air Asia has denied the safety claims. On its KLIA East website it said: “The runway distance between KLIA East and the KLIA main terminal exceeds international standard requirements of a minimum of 2km. In fact, the runways are more than 7km apart.”

The runway at KLIA East will be parallel to the runway at KLIA.

A 1997 report published by the National Aerospace Laboratory of the Netherlands supports Air Asia’s claim. “Independent parallel approaches may be judged adequately safe if the runway spacing is greater than 1270m, and unsafe if the spacing is lower than 930m,” said the report. The Netherlands is home to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the fifth busiest airport in Europe.

air asia pc labu low cost carrier terminal lcct 080109 tony fernandes The Malay Mail on Jan 13 quoted a senior Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) official who said his department was already overstretched and would have trouble co-ordinating takeoffs and landings between KLIA, Subang and KLIA East. The official added that there is a shortage of air traffic controllers in the country.

According to air traffic control procedur es described on the DCA website, the air traffic services centre in Subang plans the arrival and departure of flights in the Kuala Lumpur region. It assigns takeoff slots to the airports and local air traffic controllers then ensure takeoffs occur within one minute of the slot that has been assigned. This ensures the smooth flow of air traffic.

Privatisation questioned

Wee also questioned the rationale of an airline o wning an airport, saying: “An airport is one of the essential security services of the nation that cannot be given to a private company.” Wee added that Fernandes was “speaking out of line as though he’s a government official”.

It is also not clear if other low cost carriers such as Cebu Pacific of the Philippines and Tiger Airways of Singapore will be allowed to use KLIA East.

anti labu airport sime darby air asia campaign logo 150109 In the blogosphere, a campaign has been launched against KLIA East at Labu. It is similar to the ‘ Save IJN ’ campaign launched a few weeks ago. The campaign involves the hosting of a logo of a mousetrap and a pumpkin. Labu is the Malay word for pumpkin.

The logo has since been hosted by several popular bloggers and two Pakatan Rakyat MPs.