There will be no new airport built in the northern region of Malaysia, according to Sime Darby, the company assigned to be the country's northern corridor economic master planner, reports Bernama news agency.

"What we are doing is expanding the existing infrastructure," said Sime Darby group chief executive Ahmad Zubir Murshid.

Sime Darby has been charged with drawing up the blueprint for four states - Penang, Kedah, Perlis and North Perak.

"For example, Penang International Airport. Despite constraints, there is potential to expand the airport into the sea and extend the runway," he explained.

He said Sime Darby also saw the need to expand the airport to develop capacity for bigger planes. Besides, he said, the airport should be expanding to serve as a cargo hub within the Indonesian-Malaysian-Thailand "growth triangle".

"We will do this by lengthening the runway and also by expanding facilities," he said.

Airport cargo capacity has already reached its limit, and the airport itself is too reliant on the foreign carriers, he said. "Passenger volume is only about 2.8 million but the current facility cannot cope," he said.

"At Penang Airport, it is quite difficult to go to the air cargo area. It is awkward to cross. We are proposing to expand the road to the cargo area so that it has a dual carriage way to allow better facility for air cargo."

In 2005, the airport handled 31,173 aircraft movements and 221,971 metric tonnes of cargo.