KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) said yesterday that no flight operations had been disrupted due to rectification works at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) since its opening in May last year, contrary to what had been claimed by its biggest customer at the terminal – AirAsia Bhd.

“With regard to the claims made by AirAsia on frequent bay changes affecting their flight operations, recorded data from the flight operations centre over the last few months showed that 85% of bay changes are the result of requests made by airlines for a number of reasons, such as late arrivals and departures, aircraft swapping and the airline’s ground handlers towing the airplane to the wrong bay,” said MAHB in a statement yesterday.

The airport operator said klia2 had 68 parking bays and eight remote bays, with 30 to 35 bays on average used daily. Usage increases to 55 to 60 bays for night-stop parking.

“Despite the closure of some bays for scheduled rectification works, there are always at least 60 bays available during the day and 66 bays at night.

“Hence, there has been no situation where airline operations were disrupted by bay closures,” it stated.

All airlines also have advance notice on which bays will be closed because the members of the Joint Inspection Committee, formed in Dec 2014 and comprises representatives from MAHB, the Department of Civil Aviation, AirAsia, AirAsia X Bhd and Malindo Airways Sdn Bhd, jointly discuss and agree on the rectification schedule.

This article first appeared in digitaledge Daily, on August 14, 2015.