Miri Airport

History

As population of Miri Town grows, the need for a larger airport forced the government to search for a new site to relief the traffic in Lutong Airport. A site to the south east of the town centre was selected. Miri Airport was fully functional post 1980s.

Facilities

Situated in Jalan Airport, Miri Airport is 9.5 km (5.9 mi) south east of Miri's city centre. Miri Airport is the busiest domestic airport in Malaysia in terms of passenger and aircraft movement. The airport has a terminal which can accommodate up to 2 million passengers annually.

The two-storey terminal building is able to handle up to 2 million passenger per annum. The terminal has been operating beyond its designed limits since 2012. There are a total of 15 check-in counters, of which 6 of them are Malaysia Airlines/MASwings check-in counters and 4 for AirAsia. There are also Malaysia Airlines/MASwings and AirAsia self check-in kiosks, located near the side entrance of the airport. The terminal is equipped with a total of 3 conveyor belts in the baggage reclaim hall.

Several shops and F&B outlets can be found in the airport, including Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Marrybrown and Famous Amos. Malaysia Airlines/MASwings and AirAsia each has a sales office in the airport. Malindo Air maintained its sales office in the first floor of the airport, just outside the departure hall, even though it has suspended flights to Miri from Kuala Lumpur indefinitely. Few months later, Malindo's sales office in Miri closed. July 1 witnessing the official resumption of Kuala Lumpur-Miri flight by Malindo.

There are two aprons in the airport: Apron 'A' and Apron 'B'. The expansion of Apron 'B' was completed in 2014. The aprons underwent yet another expansion in 2015 and were completed on 3 March 2016. The expansion allows 4 additional parking bays for code C aircraft (i.e. Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 and equivalent) and 6 for ATR 72. All existing taxiways, gates and parking bays were renamed after the expansion and upgrades. The apron can now accommodate 7 code C aircraft, 1 Airbus A330 or Boeing 777, 9 ATR 72s and 4 de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters at any given time. Gates A1 - 3 in apron 'A' were renamed Gates 2 - 4 (parking bays 2 - 4), with a new addition of Gate 5 which consists of bays 5 - 8. All gates are for code C aircraft, except for Gate 4 which is optimised for widebody aircraft like Airbus A330 or Boeing 777. Apron 'B' is restricted to Fokker F50 and ATR 72 aircraft or smaller (i.e. DHC-6 Twin Otter) and is primarily used by MASwings, except for parking bay 1 (formerly parking bay B1), which is used for code C aircraft. Gates B and C in apron 'B' were renamed to Gate 1 consisting of parking bays 1 and R1 - R13 (parking bays R1 - 3 were former parking bays B2 - B4 while bays R10 - R13 were initially bays C1 - C4). Parking bays R4 - R9 are new additional parking bays. For the comfort of passengers boarding and disembarking ATR 72s or DHC-6s, 3-fingered piers with covered walkways were also constructed in apron 'B', based on the walkways found in Low cost carrier terminal (LCCT) of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) that is now closed.

Miri Airport is serviced with a 2,745 m × 60 m (9,006 ft × 197 ft) runway, designated Runway 02/20, and a partial, parallel taxiway at a width of 23 m (75 ft). Runway 20 is equipped with high intensity simple approach lights whereas Runway 02 has high intensity Cat 1 precision approach lights installed. Other aids include: ILS, DVOR/DME, NDB and PAPI (slope 3°). Taxiways A3, B1 and C1 that connects the runway, Apron 'A' and Apron 'B' with Taxiway A were finished after the 2016 expansion.

There is a hangar for general aviation and an Awan Inspirasi hangar 500 m from the terminal building. The general aviation apron GA2 is a small distance away from GA1 apron, which was completed in 2011. The Awan Inspirasi hangar and GA2 were designed to accommodate 4 helicopters up to Sikorsky S92. MASkargo and Gading Sari each maintains a hangar less than 50 m away from the terminal building.

Sarawak controls its own immigration autonomy. The exercised laws require all passengers travelling with any flights from outside Sarawak (including all flights from Peninsular Malaysia, the state of Sabah, Federal Territory of Labuan and other countries) to go through the immigration screening at the first entry of any Sarawakian airport.

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