Arriving at Kota Kinabalu International Airport (4 May 2022)
Kota Kinabalu International Airport (BKI), (GPS: 5.92307, 116.05101) is the main airport for Sabah. Also known as KKIA, it is the second biggest airport in Malaysia and the biggest on the island of Borneo. In 2008, the airport handled 4.6 million passengers and 54,317 aircraft movements.
Arriving at Kota Kinabalu International Airport
You need to know that the airport has two terminals, each on either side of the runway. Most flights arrive at Terminal 1, on the south side of the airport, while low-cost carriers such as AirAsia use Terminal 2, on the north side of the airport. The airport is not far from downtown, just about 7 km. There is a shuttle bus service that takes passengers to Wawasan Centre in the city. You can also catch a taxi. Buy the coupon and then present it to the driver upon entering the taxi. The standard rate for a trip to the city is RM20.
History of Kota Kinabalu International Airport
The history of Kota Kinabalu International Airport began as a military airfield. It was badly damanged by Allied bombings during the Second World War. A new terminal building was constructed in 1957. By 1963, the runway was extended to 1921 meters in length, so that the airport can accept the Comet 4 aircraft.
In the 1970's, a new terminal building was built on the other side of the runway. Thereafter the original terminal building became known as old airport. Further expansion carried out in 2006 saw the two terminal buildings being renamed Terminal 1, for the new terminal building, and Terminal 2, for the original terminal building.
Terminal 1 of KKIA is the main terminal building. It is located to the south side of the airport, and reached via Jalan Putatan in Petagas. The terminal has 12 gates, 5 aerobridges and 4 baggage claim belts.
Terminal 2, which was the original terminal, is approached from Jalan Mat Salleh in Tanjung Aru. It is used mostly for low-cost carriers. AirAsia is expected to use this terminal for its flights to Guilin, Xiamen, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Please use the information on this page as guidance only. The author endeavours to update the information on this page from time to time, but regrets any inaccuracies if there be any.
About this website
Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.
While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.