Seletar is already a airport operational at Singapore. The small hub, located to the north of the financial metropolis, is in fact ideal. It's just 15 minutes from the border, making it ideal for both getting to downtown Singapore and travelling to neighbouring Malaysia. It currently hosts business jets private but the government has granted the platform an operating licence to host regular lines by the end of the year. A new terminal is currently being completed and should be operational soon. It will be home to the regional carrier Fireflya subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines. The airline, which operates only ATR72s, will transfer all its routes to Seletar. Firefly serves the Singapore-Changi route up to 20 times a day from Kuala Lumpur Subang, Ipoh and Kuantan.
" The new terminal will enable Seletar Airport to handle future air traffic growth" said Khoh Su LimSeletar Airport's Deputy Managing Director, in a press release.
The new terminal, with a surface area of 10 000 m² - more than six times the surface area of the old building - cost 49 million euros (80 million Singapore dollars), offering a capacity of 700,000 passengers a year. It will be managed by Changi Airport Group (CAG). The terminal will have the characteristics of a private terminal for business aviation.
Inside the departure area, passengers will find four check-in desks, six passport control stations, two security checkpoints and a departure lounge with capacity for around 200 passengers. A number of shops will also be available. The building also includes a section reserved for passengers travelling on business flights and private jets, with a dedicated waiting area.
According to the airline analyst OAGIn 2017, the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore route was the densest in the world in terms of frequencies, with over 30,500 flights, i.e. 84 flights a day operated by seven airlines. Last year, this route welcomed more than four million passengers.
Firefly will offer an attractive alternative for passengers wishing to commute between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Today, it takes an average of three hours to travel from city centre to city centre between the two metropolises. In Kuala Lumpur, Subang is a 30-minute drive from the city centre and Seletar is 20/30 minutes from the centre of Singapore. This will reduce the total journey time to two and a half hours.
All this while awaiting a possible TGV linewhich will offer the fastest journey times between the two Asian capitals. According to studies carried out in recent years, the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur high-speed train (HSR), 350 km long, would reduce journey times between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to 90 minutesfrom centre to centre.
Except that this project has a cost, which the new Malaysian government has judged to be prohibitive from the outset. According to the calculations of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's experts, the project launched last year by the Malaysian and Singaporean governments for an opening date around 2024, was to represent a total investment of 10.5 billion euros. Apparently, the cost was underestimated by the former government, which is now talking about a figure of 22 billion euros.
After announcing that it was suspending the project, the government reversed its decision in mid-July. The compensation to be paid, particularly to Singapore, would be enormous. Especially as Singapore has already allocated a budget of several hundred million euros to the development of infrastructure to accommodate the future station and tracks.
What's more, the project would probably be viable in the long term. It is estimated that by 2030, more than 22 million passengers could use the line. The less optimistic talk of ten million passengers on this line, theequivalent of Eurostar on the Paris-London route. And putting Singapore, with its population of six million, 90 minutes from Kuala Lumpur, with its population of three million, seems like common sense. And it could, at last, ease congestion in the skies over South-East Asia.
Malaysia to launch a business class on its electric trainsA business class will be available on board ETS high-speed electric trains in Malaysia, offering a relevant alternative for business travellers who need to get to Penang or Ipoh from the Malaysian capital. Five years ago, Malaysia finally introduced a comfortable, fast train service on the peninsula's North-South axis. The ETS Kuala Lumpur-Padang Besar line (the border with Thailand) is 750 km long and passes through major cities such as Ipoh and Penang. It is served by trains travelling at nearly 150 km/hour. The train has been a real commercial success, having carried in 2017 more than 4.15 million passengersup 16% year-on-year. In fact, the journey between Kuala Lumpur and the Thai border is relatively quick, averaging between 5h and 5h30. The line is served by 18 round trips a day. And the frequency of trains on the line is set to improve even further between now and winter. According to Rani Hisham Samsudin, Managing Director of KTMB Malaysian Railways, new trains are due to enter service in October. This will make it possible to offer at least 20 round trips a day. What's more, on-board comfort will be significantly improved with the introduction of a business class compartment. " We plan to provide services such as Wifivideo-on-demand and other special features to be decided over the long term" said the CEO of KTMB. Each business class carriage will be able to accommodate up to 32 people per journey. Tickets can be booked online via the KTMB website or the South East Asia transport consolidator, Baolauwhich offers a booking and ticket sales service in French. |
