Why Was Sepang Chosen

Why was Sepang chosen? One of the reason KLIA Sepang was chosen as the preferred location for this mega project is due to its strategic location that is suitable for the development of road and rail infrastructures. It is located at the top of the southern corridor of Peninsular Malaysia, bordering the states of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. Hence, access between this new airport, Kuala Lumpur and other major towns has been a major consideration in the development plans. With the new airport, the nation's administration center (Putrajaya) will be closer to the airport. They are only about 20 minutes away from each other. Other places under the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) are Cyberjaya and the Sepang Formula 1 circuit.

Design The concept of KLIA’s terminal building area was prepared by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa. The terminal building area was designed using the concept of Airport in the forest, forest in the airport, in which it is surrounded by green space. This was done with the cooperation of the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia. An entire section of rain forest was transplanted from the jungle and put in the satellite building. The airport is designed to handle up to 100 million passengers per year. It has signage in Malay, English, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic and an automated people mover and travelators to allow easy movement in the airport. The runways and buildings cover an area of 100 square kilometres. With its 75 ramp stands, it is capable of handling 100 aircraft movements at a time. There are 216 check-in counters, arranged in six check-in aisles. The airport is the first in the world to use the Total Airport Management Systems (TAMS) — although the system was blamed for the airport’s teething troubles by Transport Minister Ling Liong Sik.

Plans

KLIA Aeropolis Masterplan Under the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport Masterplan, a new runway and a new satellite building will be constructed to accommodate the increasing number of passengers. The airport Phase 2 development plan is to handle 40 million (▲5 Million) passengers per year by 2008 with the expansion of low cost carrier terminal. For phase 3, the airport will expand to handle 75 million (▲35 million) passengers per annum with the construction of a new satellite terminal and replacement of current low cost carrier terminal with a new low cost carrier terminal that will be capable of handling 30 million passengers alone. Under Phase 4, the airport will be capable to handle 130 million passengers per annum by 2020. With the slight modification of the masterplan, the future Terminal 2's satellite terminal will be combined into one satellite terminal. The expansion of Terminal 2's satellite terminal will be exactly the same as Terminal 1's satellite terminal, where initially the satellite terminal will have four arms, and another four arms when the terminal reached its capacity. There is sufficient land and capacity to develop facilities to handle up to 130 million passengers a year, five runways by the year 2020 and two mega-terminals, each linked with satellite terminals.[3] The airport's vicinity will include hiking trails for jet-lagged travelers, golf courses, convention center, a theme park, a shopping center, hotels, and a wetlands nature preserve. Sepang International Circuit, which hosts Formula One, A1 Grand Prix, Super GT, IndyCar Series and MotoGP races, is also nearby. There has also been a proposal for a monorail link to the F1 circuit. The development plan is due to be ready by April 2008.[7] In November 2006, the Malaysian government announced that it had approved in principle the construction of a rail link between the main terminal building and the low-cost carrier terminal. Construction was scheduled to begin in 2007. There were however no details of which company would carry out the project, nor was there an indication that it would be directly connected to the existing airport high-speed train Express Rail Link. [hide]