YOURSAY | 'KLIA2 is akin to a Mydin hypermarket rather than an airport terminal. Chaos reigns.'
Abasir: Welcome to KL International Airport 2 (KLIA2), voted the world's most expensive low cost terminal by the people of Malaysia. Here you may walk till you drop, and if you survive, may spend it all even before getting to the city.
It is our way of saying 'Selamat Datang' (though neither you nor your cash is 'selamat' in any way).
Dahjadi Bubur: AirAsia Group chief Tony Fernandes, you hit the nail on the head on how things work in Bolehsia!
They design and build grandiose schemes and then pass the cost to the customers. It is not to “give the customers what the customers want”.
Yap CS: They spent RM4 billion to build a low-cost terminal. It is low cost indeed; just go see the place: cheap tiles, terrible finishing, bad wiring, leaking ceilings, flooding, etc.
But RM4 billion had been spent to feed the deadwood; so what can they do, they have to charge near premium prices.
Hence the adversity to call it low cost, otherwise they cannot justify the rise in prices. This is Bolehland.
Paul Warren: Come on Fernandes, you should know better. If a RM1 billion terminal was built, only RM333 million could have been squandered. We are talking about the 1MDB era. That would certainly have not been enough.
With RM4 billion they can squander over RM1 billion. That would be the primary criterion. This is why you have a nonsensical shopping mall there, and it takes half an hour from check in to go to the other corner to catch a flight.
But all this did not matter to the authorities.
Iiiizzzziiii: Perhaps Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) top honchos may be out of touch with the people. What people want and what MAHB thinks people want are two different things.
What is the purpose of low-cost carrier airline? Why is there a need for low-cost carrier terminal in the first place?
It is all about perceived affordability by the people which in turns create branding of an airline. All the costs of building an airport is eventually pass to the customers who use it.
At least there should be consistency in labelling an airport. If MAHB and AirAsia cannot come to terms with the labelling, then what can be done to resolve it?
Bumiputhran: I have travelled the four corners of the earth frequently, from Iceland to Cape Town to Hubei to Kathmandu.
KLIA2 is the worst airport among them. It's a long walk with up and down staircases and elevators. It seems the architect had one too many pegs of whisky when he was designing it.
Raja Chulan: MAHB has turned KLIA into a roadside 'pasar malam'. Circulation spaces and walking corridors, meant for smooth flow of passengers, are turned into night markets selling cheap stuff, food, drinks, etc.
Similarly, KLIA2 is akin to a Mydin hypermarket rather than an airport terminal. Chaos reigns. Catching a flight at KLIA2 is always a tense and worrying event. You are never sure if you are going to miss your flight.
I can very well understand Tony Fernandes' and AirAsia's frustrations.
Pokokgetah: An airport caters primarily to the interests of air travellers. That's not what KLIA2 is. It's a shopping mall with a runway.
Inworldnotof: KLIA2 is a nightmare. Walking the corridors for what seems like endless kilometres after a long haul flight sucks the life out of even a normal, healthy person. It's killing for the less fit and not so young nor that old.
Obviously, the way Fernandes is quarrelling with MAHB tells us it is all about long-term vision of quality service and good business practices versus the long-entrenched Malaysian way of doing business via squander-plunder mode as if there is no tomorrow.
Fogbom: Fernandes' and MAHB managing director Badlisham Ghazali's comments reflect precisely what's right and what's wrong with Malaysia.
On the one hand, you have the gung-ho, hard-driving, risk-taking Malaysian, who uses his own money, mortgages his house, borrows from relatives, gripped by a sound business plan that drives him to extremes, and working his butt off in pursuit of the idea.
He succeeds, and builds an unbelievable empire with his bare hands. He is beholden to no one. Such people generally come from those without state and constitutional privileges, though there are exceptions.
On the other hand, you have a feudalistic man, probably a party man, possibly a man who has been fed from cradle to grave with the mantra that his race will perish unless they cling to the ‘bangsa, agama dan negara’ fetish.
Thus AirAsia wins the world's accolades and KLIA2 swells in cost from RM1 billion to RM4 billion, and now is neither low-cost nor prestigious.
Abasir: Fernandes said, “You can't charge passengers for your grandiose schemes”.
But that is exactly how they operate in Bolehland - come up with grandiose schemes to feed their cronies, hangers-on and a variety of other home-grown parasites, and then pass the cost on to hapless citizens.
Boeyks: Yes, in Bolehland, it is 'high cost, overpriced, over built and over spent' - the theme behind 1Malaysia.
Otherwise, how is one to 'cari makan'? AirAsia should be lucky not be charged for promoting "below market prices" like what has happened with Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng. - Mkini
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