SEPANG: Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) today unveiled 131 newly-refurbished restrooms at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), completed at a cost of RM30 million.
According to its managing director, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, the refurbished toilets in the main airport terminal are part of a first phase of upgrading works, which began in January this year and will be completed by January next year.
"The KLIA building is already 20 years old. We need more time to refurbish all 225 toilets that we have here, because we need to fix the piping system as well.
"Piping (work) takes time. And we do not want to disrupt airport operations," he told reporters at a press conference today.
Also present was Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government (KPKT) secretary-general, Datuk Mohammad Mentek.
A collaborative effort between KPKT and MAHB, the upgrading works on 256 restrooms include 162 toilets at klia2, which will be refurbished under phase two, scheduled to be carried out between January and December 2019.
"We (welcomed) 26 million passengers at the main terminal of KLIA as of May this year. It's a 25 per cent increase this year. Our toilets give the first impression," Badlisham said.
Among the enhanced features of the new KLIA toilets are automatic bio-chemical dispensers, built-in blowers, individual jet hand-dryers and vanilla bouquet air-sterilizers, created especially for KLIA.
The new men's toilets also come with diaper-changing boards.
"So fathers can't escape diaper duties," Mohammad jested.
He revealed that the ministry is also in the midst of discussing a proposal to make it mandatory for all restaurants in the country to keep their toilets clean as a prerequisite to renew their business licence.
"It's part of our initiatives to upgrade all public toilets under the supervision of the local authorities," Mohammad added.