klia2 open day

being married to someone who has his foot partially through the door of the aviation industry *touch 1000 pieces of wood*, it would not do to miss KLIA 2's Open Day, on the 27th April. Significant Other had a class in the morning so it we could only arrive there at 4pm.

Open Day was actually from 9am - 5pm, but due to the surging crowds, they extended their hours until 7pm. MAHB estimated about 20,000 people to visit; i think the actual numbers ran three times more than that, hee~.

klia2 open day

i hope that with the 6000+ parking bays made available to the public, we won't be experiencing the horrible congestion just trying to drop or pick up passengers like what we usually see at lcct. oh wait, i just hope parking prices aren't crazy.

passenger drop off (or pickup?) at klia2

did i mention that this place is huge? even the main occupants of the building agree =P. a pilot friend of Significant Other says it's a 45-minute walking distance to get from the office to the tarmac - and that's if you're not in a hurry, haha.

the departure hall

departures board

we had to register first at the check-in counters to get our boarding passes. kids below 12 enters for free.
there was a full tour you could participate in: checking-in at the local departures, getting on a bus ride through the new runway, disembarking at the international arrival hall and passing through the Skybridge. or you could just go straight and visit the Skybridge, the bridge that only international passengers will be able to pass through once the airport is fully operational. we went for the full tour: it covers the whole airport anyway so you could kill all the birds with one stone.

our boarding passes!

waiting for the tour bus

on the tour bus

flight gates... we're missing planes here

our tour guide

the length of Runway 3 is about 4km. of course, the bus didn't take us to the end of the runway ok. HAHA.

the new Runway 3

the first flight to land at klia2 was Malindo Air flight OD1027 from Kota Kinabalu, which landed at about 0005 hours on May 2nd. naturally, they welcomed the plane in style:

first flight to land in klia2
img source: Irwan's fb 

Cebu Pacific Airways flight 5J502 to Manila was the first departing flight from klia2 at 0120 hours. just in case you'd like to know. naturally, the passengers were the first to utilize the check-in counters, lol.

budak2 jakun

shopping lady haha (no mothercare here btw)

i would call it an overstatement if the day passed without a single glitch. the below escalator connects international passengers to the departure/arrival gates. unfortunately for us when we got there, the escalator suddenly went kaput and the 2 available elevators weren't working. they got it to work, eventually. but just imagine if this happened while the airport was fully functional, hahah.

being glitch-free is an overstatement...

see? even the elevator was confused.

i.look.fat.

ok so i didn't realize they set up this board at various checkpoints throughout the tour so i only managed to start snapping photos of them from checkpoint 8 onwards, oops.

checkpoint 8

the Skybridge is the first in Asia and only the third airport Skybridge in the world. the only thing missing during our visit to the Skybridge was the AIRPLANES! so we had to make do with the planes that you can see over at KLIA, hahahah (and only Significant Other's camera was able to take close-ups).

the skybridge. a plane can pass underneath the bridge

in the skybridge. check out the travellator at the back

view from the skybridge... sans aircrafts

klia from afar... check out the old livery

checkpoint 9

at arrivals - immigration

checkpoint 10

baggage claim

arrivals hall

checkpoint 11

the best checkpoint of all - Gateway@klia2.  i was beginning to wonder whether this place was more of an airport or a shopping mall. the main occupants voted the latter, bahahahah. seriously they have so many outlets here, i even found toys r us somewhere down the lower levels. oh they even have Pandora here =P. dayana took one look and said 'look Mommy, it's your store!' T___T. it opens today, and someone who's already gone there said they have a 3% discount. so if you think it's worth the journey (or if you live nearby), sila pergi hahahahahhaha.

there's a Pandora here! no need boarding pass! LOL

excited punye budak

the new ATC tower (seen in the background in one of my earlier photos), stands at 141.9 metres above sea level and is the tallest of its kind in the world, can you imagine? the tower costs RM55 million in total if you can imagine summore, and was built by Malaysian firm Perkasa Jauhari Sdn Bhd. it has 33 floors and a rooftop where the Surface Movement Radar is located. i think the old ATC tower at Subang is currently the third tallest.

apparently we own the tallest tower. kewl eh?

third tallest tower

klia2 will be fully operational on 9th May. so... good luck and let's hope everything will be going smoothly (although, i've been advised to stay away from low cost flights for the first couple of months to allow the new occupants to sort themselves out at their new home).

ok so that's it, end of story. we unloaded the exhausted kids at home and had dinner with bil at Chillis =D. Auntie Enn had a swollen foot so couldn't join us. i have no idea how she plans to climb Mount KK this week in that condition, haha.

late dinner w bil