FROM ballooning construction costs and delays to a major flooding problem, Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) has been engulfed in controversy even before it opened its doors in 2014.

Last week, the Malaysian Aviation Commision (MAVCOM) announced a hike in the passenger service charge (PSC), or airport tax, at klia2, starting another hullabaloo around the airport.

As of January 1, the PSC for all international destinations from any Malaysian airport will be RM73. It is currently RM50 for non-Asean international destinations from klia2.  

Mavcom said the PSC had to be raised because it was unsustainable for the more advanced klia2 to maintain the rate of the old Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT).

But critics say the fee hike is unjustified, considering the string of problems that klia2 has faced from the start,

Delays and disasters

Announced as a replacement to the LCCT, klia2 was initially projected to cost RM1.7 billion when plans for the airport was unveiled by then-transport minister Ong Tee Keat in July 2007.

However, after multiple revisions to the budget, Parliament was finally informed in October 2012 by then-deputy transport minister Abdul Rahim Bakri that the final cost of building the airport was an astounding RM4 billion – almost 2.5 times more than the original budget.

The revelation prompted a Public Account Committee (PAC) investigation into klia2 in November 2013. The PAC report was completed in November 2014 and tabled in Parliament.

Apart from ballooning costs, multiple construction delays had also plagued the klia2 terminal, which had been due to be completed in June 2013, but had only opened its runways in March 2014.

But that was only the beginning of the airport’s problems.

Since klia2 commenced operation, the airport has been plagued by soil settlement and sinking problems and constant operational inconveniences. The airport, critics said, appeared to be in a state of perpetual repair.

Shortly after it began operations, a video circulated on social media showing flooding at the klia2 apron, the area where aircraft are parked to load and unload passengers or cargo, refuel, or for maintenance.

In 2015, AirAsia group CEO Tony Fernandes showed on Twitter a section of the airport covered in a puddle of water.

Fear that the airport was sitting on land that was sinking led the Transport Ministry to set up a five-man independent audit committee to investigate the problems.

The committee found that sinking and ponding issues faced by the airport were to be expected, with airport operators Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) saying it would continue to carry out maintenance works.

klia2 is two kilometres from the main terminal, which is linked by with a train. It has a capacity for 45 million passengers a year.

Fee hikes for sinking airport

While the PSC hike might seem to pale in comparison to the airport’s other troubles as far as controversies go, critics say the tax revision and klia2’s earlier problems are interlinked.

DAP lawmaker Tony Pua claims the RM50 to RM73 PSC increase was a bailout for MAHB’s borrowings amounting to more than RM5 billion. 

Pua said incompetence in the design and construction of klia2 had led to much higher operational costs.

“This would include higher interest costs due to much bigger loans taken to cover the billions of ringgit in cost overrun, high repair and rectification cost due to continue soil settlement to date as well as high retrofitting cost to mitigate the shortcomings of the airport,” Pua told The Malaysian Insight.

He said “substantial hikes” in the PSC at klia2 were not to bear the cost of more high-tech operations, but to make up for unnecessary losses made by the airport’s operators.

“The losers are Malaysians and our low-cost carrier industry,” he said. – December 23, 2017.