LCCT Kuala Lumpur International Airport 101

First time travelling abroad with Airasia to/from Kuala Lumpur? Know what to expect here!

If you’re travelling to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia using low cost airplane, such as Airasia, you will be landing in LCC Terminal (low cost carrier terminal) KLIA. It is located about 15-20 minutes from the main KLIA terminal building. To transfer from/to main terminal to LCCT, there are buses every 20 or 30 minutes, the bus fare is 1.5 RM. From LCCT, the bus departs from in front of domestic arrival. From main terminal KLIA, the bus departs from bottom level (bus terminal). 

International Arrival

Until further notice, international tourists coming to Malaysia don’t need to fill any immigration form. Once disembark from the aircraft, just follow the aircrew (or just follow the crowd) to the terminal building. If you just transit in Malaysia and will continue your flight elsewhere, just turn left once you’re inside the terminal building. But if you’re going to enter Malaysia or need to get your baggage first, you will need to pass the immigration on the second floor. The escalator up is right in front of the terminal building’s door.

After the immigration, turn right and take the escalator down. You will see several  kiosks offering SIM card. Turn right if you have check-in baggage, go straight ahead if you only bring your cabin luggage with you. The officers randomly ask to scan the passengers’ baggage. If they don’t ask and you don’t have anything to declare, just walk on. Then you will see the kiosks to buy taxi ticket or to rent cars. If you want to take taxi from the airport, you need to buy the ticket here. They have fix rate for each destination zone. They offer different types of taxi: the budget/regular one (for up to 3-4 persons), premium taxi (up to 4-5 persons), and van (up to 8 persons). The budget taxi fare is ranging from 60-150RM, depending of the destination zone. On the left side, there are kiosks selling bus ticket. Actually the ticket can also be bought inside the bus, so it’s not necessary to buy it there. The cheapest way to reach Kuala Lumpur is by using bus to KL Sentral. KL Sentral is a terminal hub where you can continue your journey using MRT, LRT, monorail, bus, taxi, etc.

Outside the departure hall, if you are using taxi, go left to the front of domestic departure hall to find the taxi queue. Budget taxi is the red-white color, premium is black or blue. Give your ticket to the officer and he will show you which taxi you will use. If you want to use bus, you will find the busses a few steps after the passing the domestic arrival. Find the bus that goes to KL sentral. The red bus (skybus) is owned by Airasia, the bus fare is 9RM to KL Sentral. You can ask the driver about the payment. Usually he will let all the passengers have a seat first and then he will approach the passengers one by one to collect the money. The yellow bus (aerobus) is usually parked in front of Skybus. The rate is 10RM to go to KL Sentral. IMO, this yellow bus is more spacious. But either bus is comfortable.

If someone is supposed to pick you up on the airport but he/she is not arrived yet, there are a lot of chairs in the international arrival hall. If you’re hungry, there are a lot of food stall (kopi tiam, McDonalds, Marrybrown, Dunkin Donuts, vegetarian Indian food, etc). Toilets and praying room is located near Starbucks. Phone booths are also available there if you need to make phone calls.

International Departure

To get to LCC Terminal, you can use bus from KL Sentral. Skybus fare to LCCT is 10 RM. The journey takes about 75 minutes. It is recommended to take the bus 4 hours before departure time. If you prefer to take taxi, the fare is about 75RM from KL. If you are close to Nilai, you can take KTM to Nilai station and continue to the airport using a feeder bus, this probably is the cheapest way to get to the airport.

In the airport, if you want to eat before you go, there are several choices such as Nasi Lemak (in Taste of Asia) or fastfood (McDonald’s or Marybrown). I prefer Marybrown because its menu is similar with McDonalds with cheaper price and sometimes less queue.

In the international departure hall, there are a lot of Airasia Machines if you need to do self check-in or print your boarding pass. There is Airasia sales counter as well if you need any assistant. You can find several weight scale if you need to measure you baggage weight before check-in. If you have check-in baggage, you need to pass the scanner to get to the check-in counters. If you only have cabin baggage, just walk to the left and you will find document check counter, after that you can continue to immigration on second floor (Make sure your flight is from gate T. I found that some flights to Singapore are from gate Y which is in the domestic departure area). Some officers will check your ticket and passport before letting you take the escalator up to the immigration.

After the immigration, there are several duty free shopping stalls. You can also use massage chairs for 1RM/3 minutes. The departure gate is on the ground floor so you need to take escalator down. The toilets and praying room are located between chocolate and perfume shop. The recommended cheap halal meals in the area are Hot n Roll (3-6RM for roti pita/paratha/crispy wrap), bread in Baker’s Cottage(3-5 RM for bread, 9RM for tuna/chicken croissant), or instant noodles in Pusrawi minimarket behind the Baker’s Cottage (only 3RM, add hot water, and voila!), or Chicken Pao. All the food stalls are selling mineral water above 2RM per bottle (500mL), except 2 places which sells it for ‘only’ 1,5RM: Pusrawi minimarket (behind Baker’s Cottage) and Pau/dimsum stall (next to Baker’s Cottage).

While waiting, you can also find place for charging your phone/laptop, ATM, money changer, bookstore, etc.