KUALA LUMPUR: Following a breakdown in the baggage-handling system at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Terminal 1 that lasted for several hours on Saturday (Apr 18), Transport Minister Anthony Loke has warned that any lapses at the country’s main gateway will not be tolerated.
The federal government has ordered an investigation into the issue – which has since been resolved – that comes on the back of a previous disruption last month.
“A national gateway cannot afford repeated lapses of this nature. MAHB, as the operator of KLIA, will be held accountable for this breakdown,” Loke was quoted as saying by Free Malaysia Today (FMT) on Sunday, referring to the Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd.
Local news outlet Malay Mail reported Loke as saying that the disruption on Saturday caused baggage delays of between two and four hours for a “significant number” of arriving passengers.
Loke did not elaborate on when the disruption first occurred but noted that the system was restored the same evening.
“Passengers who travel through our national gateway deserve a standard of service reliability that this incident has clearly failed to meet,” he said, while stressing that resolving the technical fault did not close the matter.
Loke said that he has since instructed the transport ministry’s secretary-general to convene an emergency meeting with relevant agencies on Monday to conduct a full review of existing standard operating procedures.
These include response time, passenger communication and contingency planning among others, Malay Mail reported.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia has also been directed to investigate the incident and determine whether punitive action should be taken against MAHB.
Loke warned that the incident pointed to deeper issues that must be addressed within the organisation.
“We cannot realise our aspiration of being among the world’s best airports without first inculcating a genuine culture of accountability and responsibility,” he said.
Passengers took to social media to vent their frustrations on the delay.
Facebook user Kenc Low posted in a Malaysia Airlines public group page about the baggage disruption at about 6.30pm on Saturday, claiming that the arrival hall at KLIA Terminal 1 was “super crowded and (with a) waiting time (of) over one hour”.
“I had arrival dinner at (a) lounge and when (I came) out, (my) luggage (was) still nowhere to be seen,” Low wrote.
Just last month, the baggage-handling system at KLIA experienced a temporary disruption that lasted little over an hour following a brief power trip on Mar 6, The Star reported.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-airport-klia-baggage-delay-travel-disruption-6066156
