Kuala Lumpur Subang Airport

I noticed that I have many old photos taken in the 60s at Subang Airport, whenever people arrived or departed. Here's one occasion. From photos taken around the same time, I believe the year is 1966.

Arrivals and departures board

Most of the origins and destinations are local, like Singapore, Penang, Kota Bahru (in the north-east of Peninsular Malaysia) but you also see more distant cities like Phnon Penh and Amsterdam. This incidentally confirms the photos as from the 60s because the civil war in Cambodia started in 1970. The KLM Amsterdam flight would have been multi-stop, at least a couple of if not a few days long, and possible staging airports include Bangkok, and New Delhi. Nearer to Europe I don't know. I would have to do a thorough search of KLM history to discover those airports.

The reason my parents and I were at the airport was to farewell the daughter of a church member, who had been wooed by, and married an Australian, and was emigrating to Australia. That's her and her brother at the top of the staircase in the previous photo.

Last minute checks

My mum is at the far left. The amah who helped raise the daughter is on the ground, then the husband, and his mother-in-law, who was obviously sad to part with her daughter.

MSA plane

This could be the plane they boarded. If so then they would have changed planes in Singapore, perhaps to board a Qantas flight. On the other hand I may have taken a photo of an unrelated plane and they took the KLM flight to Singapore and thence to Australia.

I looked up the family in question. It seems that the couple are living near Grafton, in a rural area. I seem to recall the husband was from a farming family. The mother later migrated to join her daughter and son-in-law in her old age, and died about 15 years ago.

I had forgotten that there was an airline called MSA (Malaysia-Singapore Airlines). It lasted from 1965 to 1972. Even though Singapore split from Malaysia in 1965, joint operations continued for 6 years.

Subang airport was superseded by KLIA in 1998. Today only a few budget carriers use what's left of Subang.

PS: You can view full sized versions of the photos by clicking on them.