Ryan Soh

Eh... The Boeing 747-200 didn't have the "spiral" stairs ah? Wow very very nice nostalgic photos!!!!!! More more more, please!

THIS THREAD IS USELESS WITHOUT PICS Hope some MW-ers can dust off their old prints and scan them for us to see.

Bike rental? What do you think we are? Phuket? LOL!!!!!! Seriously... Go and consult google map and you can familiarise yourself with the train station and where we were spotting. I have indicated there the EXPO train station is and the 2 spotting locations further east of it. Lemme know when will you be down perhaps I can drive you there.

tsk tsk tsk.... If this is the kind of mentality MAHB is dishing out, no wonder KLIA is what it is today...

AH SO NEH! Spiky bouncy hair! Yes indeed... You need a car to get there.

Hmm... how should I put this without offending anyone? I will just do so with the acknowledgement that I will be flamed for my views so feel free to do so, no hard feelings. The time has come for MAHB to work on consolidating KLIA's resources into it's confines. The "master plan" was build around making KLIA into a HUB. It doesn't matter when the masterplan was created, the plan needs to be tweaked time and time again to be moulded to fit the present climate moving forward. Time is of the essence here and if you do not capitalise on the wave, you miss it - which is my sore point with MAHB. You have a bunch of GLCs dealing with a gung-ho privately run company / conglomerate. Needless to say there WILL be a clash of cultures. So yes, I am grouping all the GLCs into one camp while AK is in the opposite side of the court. There are TONS of room to build a permanent terminal for AK and if this one has a ERL rail line obstructing, go elsewhere! If this one too swampy, GO ELSEWHERE! Heck is their expansion plan ONLY confined to these 2 areas? If you look at the so called master-plan for the airport, I hardly think so. And even in the present KLIA without taking into consideration of the furture master plan, there is so much more room... So to me, with every reason MAHB releases to the press, it is a shot in their own foot because it simply shows everyone else that they are ill-prepared to be flexible. If this way doesn't work, there is ALWAYS another way. ALL WAYS AND AVENUES have to be exhausted until you can be sure (and doubly sure) there is no way out then you say "no". If their current reaction leaves many wondering "why didn't they think of that when they first build?" it simply means that is not a good answer. I will not accept because if this was me in their shoes, I would have been terminated immediately with 24hrs notice. With MAS in their present state, AK is set to take over them in terms of passenger numbers (maybe they already have). The cycle of people movement is very high for the latter and more passengers means more money collected via airport taxes. Does MAHB REALLY want to lose a customer like that? If one can capitalise on AK's growth (despite it being an LCC) and bring in more business for KLIA, isn't that a wonderful thing? It is all about $$, $$ and more $$$$$$$$$$. Yes sure we have heard the sceptics who can always say AK is dreaming, only in their dreams they will take over MH and eventually SQ in terms of pax carried. Yes... everyone told TF he was a dreamer too when he bought Air Asia from Hi-COM. MAHB has a cash cow in their hands but they cannot / don't want to handle it. For now, it might seem that they scored a victory, but in the long run only KLIA will be the one to lose out because you have MILES of dusty cul de sac unused and being rolled over by the occasional MH 737 while Labu nearby churns and drums. Is that what we really want? TF has been trying to sugar coat the situation by saying that KLIA is not a hub, but the hub is KL. But we all know what he really means by that - KLIA is too stifling. So my view stands. Labu should not be built. All the GLCs should stop sheltering one another and get real. Compete on level playing field and only then can we see the fruits of labour. Long term... LONG TERM!

Sigh, despite my objections to the Labu-Labi project I feel TF's pain. I hope MAHB will realise someday that by making things difficult on the short term by bickering back and forth and presenting one obstacle after another so that MAS can flourish, it will only hurt KLIA's status in the long run.

Oh god... here we go again with the lelong... Very 5-star is it?

OMG... were you the one driving the Ford?

Ya man... Pertama kali ke KLIA for spotting.

Just got back from a very fruitful spotting session in KLIA. So that wasn't enough I had to head to Changi Business Park on 27 January... PHEW... Ok Spotting high is over. Now back to normal life.....

Note to self : SUNBLOCK I went back the next day as the weather wasn't too sunny otherwise... PHEW! I got a little burnt from that afternoon.

Just returned from KL. I managed to get up to the Met Station and met up with a few MWingers there. Damn worth the trip[ and in fact, I went back there the next day again!

This trip to KL started innocently enough. One of the main objectives was to check out the various spotting locations around KLIA. I was adviced well in advanced via some well meaning MWingers that 32R wasn't condusive anymore... so 32L it was! 24th January 2009 Highway drive there was smooth and completed in 40mins. I was trying to out run the ERL but to no avail. Went towards the Kompleks Bunga Raya and turned into the primeter road, meanwhile ignoring the sign that said "Authorised Vehicles Only"... I was prepared with a speech should I be caught "I dunno... I follow Malaysia Wings..." Before you knew it... this was what turned up just as I was driving up the slope towards the KLIA Met Station. I was fumbling for my camera like a mad man and missed the wheels. More traffic followed.... CX A343 from HKG was one of them. Traffic was mostly dominated by MH 737s. The occassional interesting one turned up. Oh yes... So many AK 320s too... In fact I saw more of them than MH! GMG Airlines of Bangladesh makes a visit. The A330 looks really good no matter which angle you capture it from. Getting ready to return to MRU. Apparently a take off from 32L was a very rare occurence that day so I was lucky. Did I tell you I met some really nice people?

I found Jalan Pekelling on Google Map that will take me to the threshold of Rwy 32R. Is that spotter-safe? I intend to turn right at the junction that when u turn left goes into Jalan Pekelling 2. Am I heading the right way? How how how? So exciting...

I will be heading to KL this weekend and will have a car at my disposal. I was thinking about heading out to the airport for some spotting opportunities. How is the situation like?

Oh my god... My heart totally goes out to this poor Hindu lady. It is one thing to be at the receiving end of an abusive tirade, but to have the cause of it based on the way you look presents anothe low blow. What kind of person in this day and age in a forward thinking country like Malaysia is allowed to fester such thoughts? This is a bit archaic, isn't it? So what... was he a Moslem / Buddhist / Christian who didn't want to sit next to a Hindu? We are all assuming that he WAS a deportee but cannot be sure. Aiyo. What happened to the World's Best Cabin Crew on a 5-star rated carrier? It is really sad that most of the cabin crew shrunk away and didn't take an active role in trying to pacify the "victim". If I were the IFS, I would have immediately assigned a "mentor" to the poor Hindu woman to make sure she would have been fussed over throughout the flight and paid special attention to her needs (assuming if JCL is indeed too full to upgrade her). KHI-KUL is a flight long enough to have pockets of nothingness and the assigned crew could have used that time to sit next to her just for an idle chit chat to ensure her mind would have been off-loaded as much as possible about the ugly incident. Something simple like an arm across the shoulder, reassuring "it is alright, we are doing what we can to make sure he is dealt with" goes a long way.

If you were flying from ANOTHER destination and there was a transit or a change of aircraft involved in KLIA, I can understand that sometimes baggage do go missing (not that I am making any excuses for MAS). But from what I gather, you were on a strictly O&D flight which means you departed from KUL and got off in SIN. So it puzzles me how did MAS lose your wife's bags?

Sigh... MAHB is very "backwards" in their modus operandi. Tak malu ke? It is bad enough they have a BKK and SIN sandwiching them, do they really want to make matters worse? I am REALLY itching to see MAHB's response to this fiasco because so far we have only heard them say "no", "can't" and "won't".

But that is not suprising no? Given what Khazanah said does hold true largely. KLIA is an under-utilised piece of resource that will waste away under the shadow of a busy Labu next door. Like as if it is not wasting away already...

Great insight... So far we have heard nonstop from Sime Darby and Air Asia, scores of responses from netizens and even Khazanah. What is MAHB's response?

Alamak... Make up your mind lah you like or you don't???

I am an ex-ATC so perhaps I can shed some light on this. The radar sequences can be handled by ONE entity who will channel the traffic accordingly to KUL or LBU (oops... are we creating ICAO codes already? Hehehe...). However, the aerodrome comtrol would still have to be handled by the respective airports, somewhat like Changi Airport and Paya Lebar Airport on Singapore, very close to one another you can see aircraft on parallel approaches at times. Ok... now this is worrying. How can an airport NOT have facilities to view thunderstorm cells? Perhaps you could be mistaken because this feature is very much a requirement for the tower controllers to advise the pilots accordingly about where these cells are and practice caution when approaching. It is also needed for the tower controller to determine the need to declare his aerodrome in "visual" or "not visual" conditions and having these storm cells on tap in front of him on a screen (while not gospel) will help him make this decision. Is KLIA CAT I certified?

If MAHB was quick on it's feet to anticipate the needs of the growth, do you think any of this would have happened? Presently this is the choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. Either or no one would be pleased. Stay at KLIA, MAHB will only impede AK's growth. Perhaps in hopes that MAS will flourish? Go to Labu, people complain the waste of resources (which I totally agree). So now what? Mana mana pun ada orang tak puas.

LOL... I have always maintained that TF and gang were just joking about Labu and it was all a ploy to get MAHB up and running to get their wishes fulfilled. So now looks like it worked.