Long Akah Airport (LKH)

Departures from Long Akah Airport (LKH) at a glance

• 4flights a day24th busiest of 30 airports
• 2routes from here
• 1airline
• 09:40 – 13:15first and last00061218

Collected 11 October 2026. Not live — check with the airline before booking.

Long Akah Airport (LKH) is a short take-off and landing port (STOLport) in the upper Baram, in Telang Usan District of Sarawak's Miri Division. Its single bitumen runway is 680 m long, it sits 88 m above sea level, and Malaysia Airports operates it. The village of Long Akah stands where the Akah river meets the Baram, and the nearest settlement, Long San, is about 10 minutes upriver by boat.

Flights from Long Akah Airport

Direct domestic flights recorded from Long Akah go to:

Destination	Airport	Airline recorded
Miri	Miri Airport (MYY)	AirBorneo
Marudi	Marudi Airport (MUR)	AirBorneo

AirBorneo runs the service. It took over full legal and operational responsibility for every service MASwings used to operate on 1 January 2026, so an older timetable or article naming MASwings describes the former operator.

Reaching Long Akah by road and river

A DayakDaily travelogue describes one overland approach: the Pan Borneo Highway through Sibu, Bintulu and Beluru to Lapok, then off-road by four-wheel drive via the Bakong junction into the interior Baram, reaching Long San at the end of the day. From Long San, Long Akah is a further 10-minute boat ride downriver, and in that account the homestay supplied the boat. Published drive times from Miri differ widely, so check the state of the road locally before setting out.

Long San and Fort Long Akah

Long San is home to Kenyah, Kayan and Penan communities, known together as Orang Ulu, and has a rural health clinic, a primary and secondary school, a Roman Catholic mission and a Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM) church. Long San is known as the principal home of Kenyah arts, crafts, music and dance, and is increasingly popular with visitors, with paid lodging at the Long San Guesthouse. It was historically the seat of the Orang Ulu paramount chief, Temenggong Oyong Lawai Jau, who held the office from 1950 until his death in 1974.

Long Akah was historically a Chinese trading post: a bazaar of eight shops was recorded in 1912, burned down that year, and by 1920 a new one was reported to be planned. It is also the site of Fort Long Akah, a two-storey administrative fort that was a Z Special Unit headquarters (Semut 2) in 1945 and a security-forces base during the 1963-66 Confrontation with Indonesia. The fort is reached from Long San by the same short boat ride downriver.

Historically, Long Akah was a transit point on river and forest-path routes to Marudi downriver, to Brunei, to Belaga, to the Kelabit highlands and to the Apo Kayan in what is now Indonesian Kalimantan. A proposed hydroelectric dam on the Baram, which would have flooded a large area of the upper river, was shelved by the Sarawak government in November 2015 and formally cancelled in March 2016.

How the airstrip was built and rebuilt

The airfield at Long Akah was built in 1957, according to a 2023 history of the fort in the Journal of Borneo-Kalimantan, but its surface was unstable and was considered unsuitable for scheduled flights by Borneo Airways. By 1958 the strip was used by the BEM's mission planes, which helped send medical emergencies to hospital downriver. In 1962 a British military Twin Pioneer carrying the Cobbold Commission, the enquiry into the formation of Malaysia, stuck on the strip and had to be dug out.

In 1964 an aircraft was seriously damaged on landing, and an engineer likened the surface to a raft of grass flaring on slime. In September 1965 engineers of the 69th Gurkha Independent Field Squadron extended the strip, improved its drainage and covered it with pierced steel planking. Two bulldozers, a tractor and a roller were airdropped in parts by British military Beverley and Argosy transport aircraft, while the planking came by launch to Long Lama and then by longboat to Long Akah.

During the 1963-66 Confrontation the strip was described as a busy place with helicopters constantly landing, one of a set of decentralised rural bases, alongside Bario and Lio Mato.

AirBorneo's check-in and baggage rules

Which rules apply depends on the aircraft on your flight, because AirBorneo's conditions of carriage set different ones for the Twin Otter and the ATR72-500. The airline also says check-in deadlines vary by airport, so leave yourself time.

• Twin Otter: check-in at the airport counter only, 10 kg of free checked baggage, one cabin bag of up to 7 kg, and unaccompanied minors are not accepted.
• ATR72-500: online check-in is available, with 20 kg of free checked baggage and one cabin bag of up to 7 kg.

On either aircraft, be at the boarding gate at least 30 minutes before departure.

Entering Sarawak from Peninsular Malaysia

Under Section 66 of the Immigration Act 1959/63, a Malaysian citizen from Peninsular Malaysia needs a pass or permit to enter and be in Sarawak. For a short stay, the free, single-journey Document in Lieu of Internal Travel Document is issued at immigration counters in Sarawak airport arrival halls on an identity card (a birth certificate for under-12s), and it allows a visit pass of up to three months.

A stay of more than three months calls for a Restricted Travel Document, valid for five years, and Miri is among the Sarawak towns with an office that issues it. Leaving Sarawak on a domestic flight, you show an identity document, a valid pass and your boarding pass.

Weather, haze and cancellations

AirBorneo's conditions of carriage treat adverse weather as a cause outside its control, and in that case the airline has no immediate obligation to carry you, re-route you or refund you, though it will make reasonable efforts to assist. On 1 September 2026, as reported, AirBorneo cancelled some Sarawak flights during haze even though runway visibility at the departure airport stayed above its minimum. If an onward connection or a booked stay depends on a Long Akah flight, leave slack around it.