THE Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) is dissatisfied with the inconvenience caused to passengers by a systems disruption at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) that began on Wednesday night and remains unresolved.

Mavcom urged airport operator Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) to keep passengers and airlines informed on when operations would return to normal while addressing the ongoing crisis. 

“Mavcom has been striving to strengthen the aviation industry in Malaysia. Part of the commission’s role is to provide a mechanism for aviation consumer protection, and we are extremely dissatisfied at what has happened at KLIA,” it said in a statement today.

“We understand that MAHB is working with all relevant parties, including the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM), to restore the operations of the airport.

“We will continue to monitor and assess the service levels at KLIA via the Airports Quality of Service Framework as well as the Malaysian Aviation Consumer Protection Code 2016 (MACPC),” it said in a statement today.

Yesterday, scores of flights were delayed due to a systems disruption at KLIA.

The disruption affected the airport’s Wi-Fi connection, flight information display system, check-in counters and baggage-handling system.

MAHB said that the disruption started on Wednesday night, and works are ongoing to rectify the issue.

Passengers were advised to arrive at the airport at least four hours before their departure times to conduct manual check-ins, or were urged to check-in via airlines’ mobile apps or websites.

Without the flight information display system, airport staff resorted to writing down flight times and numbers on whiteboards. Photos of these were snapped by travellers and shared on social media as they complained about long waiting times.

Earlier today, MAHB said works to fix the systems disruption in KLIA had commenced at 6am.

“We have utilised all 38 remote bays at the KLIA main terminal to cater to aircraft that are not able to proceed to the scheduled gates as they are still being occupied,” MAHB had said in a statement.

MAHB also initially said it expected the problem to be resolved by today, and is due to provide another update on the situation this evening. – August 23, 2019.