On Saturday, Malaysia celebrated the opening of the glitzy, US$2.25 billion Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), which will see its first flight leave on Tuesday morning. The airport, located 50 km (30 miles) south of the capital, has an initial capacity of 25 million passengers per year.

China's president Jiang Zemin will on Thursday officially open Hong Kong's $20 billion Chek Lap Kok airport, which will begin commercial operations four days later with an initial annual passenger capacity of 35 million. The new facility is 30 km (18 miles) from cramped Kai Tak airport.

Both airport moves had been planned long before the rout in regional currencies that began last July. ``Certainly with our present economic situation we would not build it at all,'' Malaysian prime ministerMahathir Mohamed said at the KLIA's opening this weekend, even though it was ``the cheapest major airport.'' The two new airports are making their debuts at an inauspicious time. Malaysia's and Hong Kong's economies shrank during the year to the first quarter of 1998, for the first time in 13 years for both countries. The slowdown has raised the spectre of a recession. The news is worse for other countries in the region. South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia all sought aid from the International Monetary Fund. But even South Korea and Thailand are proceeding with aggressive airport expansion programmes.

While Asia's currency depreciations have turned the countries into cheaper tourist destinations for most Western visitors, intra-regional travel has declined. Tourism is the top foreign exchange earner for Thailand, but its ``Amazing Thailand'' campaign is meeting a not-so-amazing response.

Despite the campaign, only 2.04 million people visited Thailand in the first quarter, a peak period, versus 1.99million in the same quarter last year. ``Most regional airlines are scaling back on frequencies starting this year, including Singapore Airlines.

This is actually more likely to impact KL than Hong Kong,'' an airlines specialist D Ravindran at management consultants Booz-Allen and Hamilton said. Despite a 30 per cent drop in passenger traffic levels from a year ago, the South Korean government is carrying on with the $5.6 billion Inchon International Airport with a first-phase capacity of 27 million passengers. It is expected to be completed in 2001.

Seoul's Kimpo Airport was operating at 113 per cent of its designed capacity before the crisis, according to a survey carried out by the Pacific division of Geneva-based Airports Council International (ACI) in December 1997.

The Thai government is seeking private funds to complete its second Bangkok International Airport at Nong Ngu Hao, due to open in 2004 at a cost of around $3.1 billion. The existing Bangkok international airport is running at 76 percent capacity, ACI said. Regional airlines analyst Tan Boon Lan at brokers Kay Hianin Singapore said Thai Airways' aggressive drive to forge alliances with western airlines will make Bangkok an attractive hub, giving both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur a run for their money.

But Singapore's Changi Airport will be difficult to dislodge as the region's pre-eminent hub for passenger and cargo traffic, analysts say.

``Singapore is a major hub, and it still has the connectivity to other points in Asia. So someone coming from the US will still find it easier to reach many more destinations in Asia if he stops off in Singapore,'' Tan said. Privatisation is most likely going to be the only feasible way to fund the rapid growth in airport capacity in the region, analysts said. The Australian government has led the way in this field, gradually selling long leases on 22 of its airports.

Few analysts questioned the wisdom of building Chek Lap Kok and KLIA. Hong Kong's Kai Tak and Kuala Lumpur's Sultan Abdul Aziz Shahairports are running at around 125 per cent their designed passenger capacities, creating infrastructure bottlenecks.