History
The airport first began as a military airfield built by the Japanese occupying forces during World-War II. It was then known as Jesselton Airfield (Kota Kinabalu was previously known as Jesselton). Towards the end of the war, it suffered severe bombings by Allied Forces until the surrender of the Japanese army in 1945.
After the war, the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) of North Borneo (now Sabah) took charge of the operations and maintenance of the airport. In 1957, the original grass strip runway was resurfaced with bitumen material and a new terminal was built. By 1959, the runway was extended to 1,593 metres long to enable the operation of Malayan Airways Viscount aircraft. In 1963, there was the reinforcement and further expansion of the runway to 1,921 meters long to cater for Comet 4 operations. Commercial flights and passenger arrivals gradually increased and a larger terminal building was needed to accommodate this increase.
In 1969 a British consultancy firm was appointed to formulate a Master Plan for a phased and organised development of KKIA from 1970 until 2000 and years beyond. The master plan was submitted to the government with the following recommendations:
- To reinforce and expand the runway distance to 2,987 meters long to cater for Boeing Jet 707 and 747 operations.
- To build a new terminal complex and parallel taxiway which connects to the runway.
- To provide navigation equipment, communication facilities and a modern light system for the runway.
Around the 1970s to 1980s, a newer terminal building was built on the other side of the runway. Almost all commercial flights were shifted to this newer and larger terminal. From then on until recently, the original terminal became known as Airport Lama ("old airport"). In 1992, the DCA of Sabah was corporatised, and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad took over management and operations of the airport. Further expansion project began in 2006 for both terminals (see below), and in January 2007 the original terminal was rebranded Terminal 2, and the other became known as Terminal 1.
Read more about this topic: Kota Kinabalu International Airport
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