The Penang Bayan Lepas Airport - a shortcoming

A little grievance about the northernmost airport of Malaysia.

The Penang Bayan Lepas Airport, as it is called,  does not have any watch towers for the visitors and users alike, to see the planes embark or depart. Human beings, being the social animal they are, like to, after seeing off their friends or loved ones into the transport ducts of the terminal, see their plane finally lifting off. They can wait several hours just for that! Some even wave good bye, involuntarily! Just for a feeling of inner satisfaction of having sent away their loved ones properly.

But the Bayan Lepas Airport doesn’t make any allowance for that. Even coming out from the main building and going under the hot sun, to the sides, for a view of the planes, also proves futile, as the long stretch of buildings completely block any sight seeing, let alone the airplanes.

Two days ago, I went with my friends to the airport. They were sending their beloved sister to India, by MAS. (From Penang the plane would fly to Kuala Lumpur and only from Kuala Lumpur she would be flown to Chennai, India.)

Well, after waving off their sister into the passenger duct, they immediately went about searching for the watch tower. I, too followed them. Enquires from the staff resulted in the negative. There were no watching tower in the airport. Someone suggested going out of the building and trying to get a glimpse of the leaving plane from afar. Which, we duly tried. We went to the left side of airport structures. But, no success here, either. The long stretch of the logistical buildings completely got in the way. We then adventured to the right side. The only sight we got here was a gigantic part of a huge China Airlines Cargo plane, loading probably, that could be seen from where we stood, the car park area of the airport workers’ quarters. That was the furthest we could see. We gave up.

Well, we came back to Taiping, disappointed. So much for people friendliness, of the airport.