By Chan Quan Min
Bashir Ahmad
Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd will build a RM160 million integrated aviation academy and sports complex that will eventually grow to become a full-fledged university, according to Malaysia Airports managing director, Bashir Ahmad.
Bashir said that in the next few years, Malaysia Airports will merge its existing two smaller training centres at Penang International Airport and Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) into a completely new Malaysia Airports Academy complete with world-class facilities.
In preparation, Malaysia Airports has earmarked 100 acres of land in the vicinity of KLIA (situated near the Sepang F1 circuit) for the project.
Construction of the academy will begin in December 2013, with the first phase involving the building of a sports complex, administration building, as many as fifteen classrooms, a business centre, student accommodation and other student facilities, all-in-all taking up half of the allocated parcel of land.
The sports complex alone will include facilities such as a mini stadium conforming to FIFA standards, a race track, multipurpose courts for racquet sports and recreation rooms.
The next phase of development will see the construction of training facilities such as simulation training rooms.
When completed, the academy will offer courses covering all aspects of airport management, namely aviation security, airport fire and rescue services, airport engineering and airport operations.
The MBA in Airport Management will be the blue ribbon qualification for the academy with plans to tie up with international universities such as Concordia University of Canada to offer the programme locally.
The academy will build on earlier successes achieved by Malaysia Airports in employee professional development.
The current Malaysia Airports Training Centres in Penang and Sepang have run, as is company policy, for several years, various career development programmes in partnership with UiTM and two international training partners. It is due to the success of these training centres that Malaysia Airports was encouraged to go ahead with the development of a larger structured training facility, Bashir said.
Over the last five years, Malaysia Airports employees were encouraged to take up the Airport Management Accreditation Programme (AMPAP) and to date, 15 staff members have graduated from the programme with a further eight more anticipating graduation in July of this year, earning the right to carry the International Airport Professional (IAP) designation.
The Global ACI-ICAO Airport Management Professional Accreditation Programme (AMPAP) is a strategic initiative born from a partnership between the Airports Council International (ACI) and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
Internationally, Malaysia Airports AMPAP qualified staff are well regarded by the aviation community and have since gone on to work at key airports, including Malaysia Airports operated airports in Delhi, Hyderabad and Istanbul, Bashir said.
He said that the quality of human capital is the major differentiating factor, in running a world-class airport such as KLIA which has consistently ranked among the top ten in the world for its ease of use and passenger facilities. It operates in an extremely competitive Asia-Pacific region – Singapore’s Changi, Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi and Hong Kong International literally at its doorstep.
As many as three local colleges are believed to offer similar aviation courses in airport management, one of which is Aviation Management College.
Further afield, Emirates airlines is accepting student applications for its aviation academy to train aviation professionals, including future airport managers.
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