‘Enough on airspace issue’-Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke

Anthony Loke Siew Fook, the Transport Minister of Malaysia, is declining to comment further on the issue of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) that is to be implemented in Singapore’s Seletar Airport by January 3 of next year.

He said to members of the press on Thursday, December 13, “enough has been said,” in the context of the ILS.

Malaysia has asked Singapore to change its plans for the Seletar ILS, which they claim encroaches into their airspace and is a detriment to the development of the town on Pasir Gudang, in Johor Baru, due to the narrow height buffer for the flight path prescribed by the ILS, which would make building tall buildings a problem for residents of Pasir Gudang.

Malaysia and Singapore have been butting heads over the issue for the past week, with the former requesting amendments to the ILS and the latter insisting this would be unnecessary.

Loke himself posted a video on Facebook in the early morning of December 12, explaining why Malaysia has issues with the Seletar Airport ILS, to which his counterpart in Singapore, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan, responded on the same day saying that the video had “a few inaccuracies”.

At this point, Loke seems to be ready to leave the matter to technical experts, who will be discussing the matter in the middle of January.

Loke told reporters today, “Let the two sides sit down and negotiate, both dies will meet in mid-January. I will leave it to the technical experts on both sides to sort it out.”

Singapore said on December 12 that in a meeting on November 29 between the civil aviation authorities from both nations, it had told Malaysia of the necessity of putting instrument flight procedures for approached to Seletar Airport from both the north and south. Furthermore, Singapore’s Ministry of Transport refuted claims from Malaysia that implementing ILS procedures for flight approaches to Seletar Airport form the north violates Malaysia’s sovereignty.

Read related: M’sian Transport Minister Anthony Loke, ‘Seletar Airport is yours, but Pasir Gudang is ours’

https://theindependent.sg.sg/msian-transport-minister-anthony-loke-seletar-airport-is-yours-but-pasir-gudang-is-ours/