The strange reason why this supposedly-oldest airport in Alor Setar was kept secret.

[Translated from our BM sister site Soscili; click here to view the original article in BM]

Travelling these days isn’t what it used to be, and we aren’t just talking about after the whole C-19 thing. Historically, the way our airports looked back then were vastly different from how they do now, since flights only started being more commercialized in 1947. In fact, Malaysia’s very first airport might have just been an empty field without any runways or watch towers, and it probably looked something like this:

This is the Alor Setar Airport, that was supposedly operating since 1924. But upon for searching airports in Alor Setar, you’d most probably only find the Sultan Abdul Halim Airport which was built in 1929, so… where did the Alor Setar Airport go?

Well, we did some digging and we found out that…

 

It could have been the oldest airport in Malaysia, but it was kept off the records.

According to our local records, the oldest airstrip in Malaysia was named as the Taiping Airport that was built by the British in 1929, while the very first international airport in Malaysia was known to be the Sungai Besi Airport that was built in 1930. However, the Alor Setar airport was presumed to have been operating since the year 1924 when a plane from the Royal Dutch Airlines made its first appearance in Alor Setar, though the exact date of its building is unknown.

 

This means that the Alor Setar Airport could have very well been the very first airport in Malaysia, despite it going missing from our history books. But there might actually be a good reason for that.

Back in the 1920’s, the Alor Setar Airport was said to be located smack dab in the middle of a rice field in Kepala Batas, about 14km away from the central town of Alor Setar. There were no cemented runways, and no terminals around to store the planes and cargo. So technically, it was just an airFIELD, since it lacked the necessary building structures to be considered an airport.

But even though it might not have been an actual airport, it has played a big role in both International and Malaysian Aviation history.

 

The Alor Setar Airport was used by both the Dutch and the Brits.

Before the Brits began construction of both Taiping Airport (1929) and Sungai Besi Airport (1933), there were other foreign powers already at work prior to the arrival of the British. Like we mentioned earlier, a plane from the Royal Dutch Airlines had made its first landing in the Alor Setar Airport in 1924, making Royal Dutch Airlines the first international flight in Malaysia.

Alor Setar Airport was the primary stopover hub for all Royal Dutch Airlines planes coming through to Malaysia. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, or by its full title Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (which means Royal Dutch Airlines but in Dutch), had its first intercontinental flight from Amsterdam to Jakarta on October 1st, 1924. The trip utilized the use of a KLM Fokker F7-II plane, and had 21 stops- one of them being in Alor Setar!

Alor Setar became such a common stop for KLM, that it was even featured in a book called “Touring The Tropics At Top Speed”, where KLM was stated to have landed in Alor Setar at least once a week in the year 1928. After which, Alor Setar became a popular pitstop for international travels. On May 29th 1933, the Alor Setar Airport became a stopover hub for Imperial Airways (British flights) , thus creating flight journeys from London to Australia.

But that wasn’t all that it was used for…

 

It was even involved in an International Air Race.

Back in the early days of air-travel, the MacRobertson Trophy Air Race (aka the London to Melbourne Air Race), was a pretty historical event in aviation and now, in Malaysian history. The race was held in October 1934, and began in Croydon, England, ending in Melbourne, Australia. The race had 5 compulsory stops around the world (one of which being Singapore), where 20 different airplanes from all over came together to compete for the prize money of £15,000.

And since the Alor Setar Airport had become a popular stop amongst both the Brits and KLM, it’s no surprise that it ended up being used by their air-race as a stopover for pilots to refuel. Additionally, a Malaysian was also involved in filming a portion of the race, and you can read up more about that here.

So, with all the events that transpired within the Alor Setar Airport, a question still remains: What happened to it?

 

It disappeared… plane and simple.

As there hasn’t been any confirmed reason about what happened to it and how it disappeared from our history in the first place. Some say that it’s currently known as the Sultan Abdul Halim Airport, which is said to have been built in 1929, while some historians believe that the British Royal Air Force had taken over the Alor Setar Airport in 1936, and turned it into the Northern Malaysian Air Base.

If it indeed became the Northern Air Base, then it would end up being captured by the Japanese in 1941, before eventually being taken over our very own Malaysian Air College in 1964, where it became an official landing strip for the Malaysian government and commercial flights in 1970. But we don’t know for sure, as we couldn’t find any records of what it is today.

In the end, even with all that happened in the Alor Setar Airport, many of its stories were not preserved within our historical records due to one simple reason: Because the ‘airport’ lacked structural integrity. But even though it might have been a justified reason at the time, it really goes to show how much of our history might have been lost… simply because we didn’t keep any records.