KLIA Topics - Master thread needed?

[kandiah k 0]

KLIA is still in a mess from what it used to be at least. The quality has dropped tremendously to its lowest while its neighbours took advantage of the pandemic to make improvements and refurbishment. The design of the airport design seems to be a mistake while they continue to make profits (MAHB). The issues I can highlight through experience since January to date are :-

1) Terminal 1 (T1) parking entrance continues to be a problem throughout the day

a) machine not issuing the coin/chip

b) TnG option faulty 

c) customer service unreachable 

d) Premiere Parking at Level 2, really? Why?

2) T1 Public Toilets are not all SDG friendly - the ones near McD's heading to Anjung Tinjau have no dryers but only paper towels

3) T1 Check In Lines are a mess everyday at peak hours, cluttered & confusing to the laymen alike 

4) T1 Staff at some check in counters are clueless about the special assistance service and charging USD50 to assist someone to the gate

5) T1 Cleaning staff are seated anywhere around the airport vicinity, steel barriers on the ground, etc 

6) T1 Lacking creativity and ambience for an international hub 

7) T1 The signages of the feeder buses to the satellite terminal is poor, what more the service itself which is abysmal 

8 ) Poor communication skills of the GTR check-in staff (I experienced a few incidents myself yesterday)

9) T1 Anjung Tinjau has become a dodgy place; it is a noisy place now with one side dedicated for TH travel updates making the place chaotic and the 'plane spotting experience' unwelcoming, passengers occupying the whole row of seats to sleep (I guess this happens at other airports too), basically from a world class airport into a pasar pagi/malam/petang, no proper enforcement nor quality control, style ada, maintenance takda 

10) T1 is also becoming an upcoming and happening base for touts, scammers, etc - just ask how many taxi touts, tugs and conmen there are at the arrival hall, anjung tinjau (professional beggars) and more 

11) E-hailing services at T1 are also leaving much to be desired - drivers cancelling on passengers, taking their time to 'makan" at their warung at the cowboy-town, etc 

12) Cost saving and reducing the air-conditioning at Anjung Tinjau is not cool at all, especially since they made one side a play area for children and another for prayer facilities for the Muslims

A lot more to share of course but the above are some highlights of my own experience and my two cents 

[Robert 0]

11 hours ago, JuliusWong said:

I think those EzPaz and EzBagz....facial recognition and self bag drop are part of IATA worldwide program to reduce the airline operation cost, airport around the region are rolling out the same. It would only be prudent KLIA and those international airport getaway do the same. I saw the same in DMK and HAN recently. Tried those HKG one recently, the system took less than a sec to recognise my boarding pass and my face.

As for immigration, the Changi departure might not be the best, tried it thrice thus far, not sure if it was my bad luck I had two breakdowns. At one time I was stuck within the gate. Then they quickly deployed the staff to do manual stamp out. The lines were pretty long due to evening departures. But kudos to the officers, they knew which flight is near to departure, they shouted (in good tone) to ask those pax to move to the front. For Malaysia arrival, the first time arrival is for capturing face and thumbprint if I am not mistaken. Thereafter you don't need to anymore. Correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, for transitting in KLIA could be better. I think they are in the next phase of upgrade. They don't much time left. Year 2026 is Visit Malaysia year. We have wasted too much time in the last decade and from 2020 to 2022...Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and The Philippines are going for head to head competition. Malaysia and Thailand seems to have upper hand now, but let's hope they do not rest on laurel. 

Re facial recognition and bag drops did you need to use a local app for the airport at DMK and HKG? 

Changi has a some egates which seem to struggle to pick up the retina correctly and can be slow. My point is that all departures by default are via gates. Many spend 30-90 mins queuing depart from KLIA T1 when it's understaffed. Yes first time is for capturing face/fingerprints but the system has been known to lose the info from time to time. My point is that at Changi you don't need to register first.  

[Craig 0]

On 3/5/2024 at 5:05 PM, JuliusWong said:

I like how The Independent reporting the news about KUL. I am very surprised BA can't make BKK works with LHR. Qatar Airways has 6x daily flight! What the........I think one slot is lease from Royal Brunei.

And the return of BA to KUL deserves some celebration.

BKK is mostly O&D, a leisure destination, and very seasonal (traffic is soft between April and October). BA is also competing with 2x TG and 1x BR daily ex-LHR plus dozens more 1-stop connection. And unlike KUL, BKK is the end-point for BA (maybe a handful of connections on PG but that's about it).

21 hours ago, Robert said:

Immigration at Changi is now gates for departing passengers and many can use gates for arrival. KLIA Immigration has 10 countries and you still need to queue for the first time.
Transiting between airlines is easy at Changi but the impression I have at KLIA is poor because many often counters airside are not manned and signage is poor.  

Malaysia loves paperwork and bureaucracy. Things are planned out by an intern and makes it unnecessarily complicated with box flow chart like they learned in uni

I am curious if they plan to use screens instead of printed A4 paper to inform transit pax their connecting gates (like FRA/MUC where passengers can look at specific connecting gates from the flight once they leave the jet bridge). Or maybe update the MH app to accommodate push notification for boarding or gate for connections. 

[jani 0]

On 3/6/2024 at 9:58 AM, kandiah k said:

 

d) Premiere Parking at Level 2, really? Why?

 

Sorry, what's wrong with this?

[KK Lee 5]

4 hours ago, jani said:

Sorry, what's wrong with this?

Mahb is maximizing revenue rather than giving public service e.g charging grab driver.

[jani 0]

 

20 hours ago, KK Lee said:

Mahb is maximizing revenue rather than giving public service e.g charging grab driver.

I agree with most if not all criticism of MAHB/KLIA but I'm not sure how them charging a premium for the most desirable parking spots is anything wrong. Especially as the other parking spots aren't exactly inconvenient.

If MAHB wanted to "maximize revenue" then they should make PSC rates equal to its regional peers. Not sure how they can compete with the likes of BKK and SIN who charge RM97 and RM232 for flights to KUL while we only charge RM40.

[JuliusWong 0]

Just done a trip to Singapore. The immigration clearance was a breeze. Cleared in few seconds during both arrival and departure (despite split seconds slower than HK's). KLIA should dish out RFP now for those readers, and get them ready for 2026 Visit Malaysia Year. The lines departing KUL was embarrassing, so was the arriving. Time is right for a multi-million dollar contract for bumiputera/ SME/ crony.......

[KK Lee 5]

1 hour ago, jani said:

 

I agree with most if not all criticism of MAHB/KLIA but I'm not sure how them charging a premium for the most desirable parking spots is anything wrong. Especially as the other parking spots aren't exactly inconvenient.

If MAHB wanted to "maximize revenue" then they should make PSC rates equal to its regional peers. Not sure how they can compete with the likes of BKK and SIN who charge RM97 and RM232 for flights to KUL while we only charge RM40.

PSC is a source of income for MAHB and MAHB doesn't depend solely on PSC. PSC at sin is higher but few pax complaint it is expensive because most are happy with their experience.

MAHB management is still in rent seeker mentality, don't understand what frequent travellers want.

Given most pax profile, not sure how feasible are Jamie Oliver and Hard Rock cafe restaurant at T1.

[Robert 0]

3 hours ago, JuliusWong said:

Just done a trip to Singapore. The immigration clearance was a breeze. Cleared in few seconds during both arrival and departure (despite split seconds slower than HK's). KLIA should dish out RFP now for those readers, and get them ready for 2026 Visit Malaysia Year. The lines departing KUL was embarrassing, so was the arriving. Time is right for a multi-million dollar contract for bumiputera/ SME/ crony.......

The gates in SG can be slow and the minute you have a minor eye issue then don't work which is a pain. The issue seems to be a particular model and both by Singaporean and expat friends say the same thing. Im a UK citizen and find the gates at KLIA much quicker than those in SG. 

As for the KLIA queues it's mostly a lack of staffing where they man every other counter. Pre Covid I was due to depart at around 8am so at 06:40 I looked and no queue so grabbed a quick snack. By 7:10 there were huge queues owing to staff finishing at 6:45 am and not enough there after. 

Somer of the issues cant easily be solved owing to many more places needing a visa to enter than required in Singapore. 

[Craig 0]

KUL immigration can be horrible during certain time, especially between 1-9PM for arrivals. I arrived the other day around 8AM and it looked like a breeze, maybe around 10-15 minutes or so for non e-gates eligible users. I was really surprised since I thought that was a peak arrival from IST/ME/India and ANZ. Departures looked terrible on a weekday around 5PM when I was leaving and I was shocked because I haven't seen departures queue that long ever.

[JuliusWong 0]

This was last Thursday March 7, 2024 17 00 hours. The Immigration Department of Malaysia should really take a leaf from those of their Singapore counterpart. There was no staff directing elderly family travelling with kids/ special needs individuals to the priority counters. Really feel bad for our guests.

 00

[Robert 0]

1 hour ago, JuliusWong said:

This was last Thursday March 7, 2024 17 00 hours. The Immigration Department of Malaysia should really take a leaf from those of their Singapore counterpart. There was no staff directing elderly family travelling with kids/ special needs individuals to the priority counters. Really feel bad for our guests.

 00

Did they only have every other counter open?

Saw that a popular travel Youtube guy missed his flight owing to the immigration queues. 
 

 

[Craig 0]

7 hours ago, Robert said:

Did they only have every other counter open?

Saw that a popular travel Youtube guy missed his flight owing to the immigration queues. 

Not going to add a click to his videos but I assume he's a seasoned traveler and has status. I've only used this service once a while back so I am not sure if they still offer it. Apparently there's an immigration officer at the MH Business Suite (for OWE) check-in. The officer can perform your exit immigration there and you will be escorted through immigration bypassing the queues and escorted through the customs X-Ray too and the agent will usually drop you off at the regional lounge or train station.

And if I am know I am late but not too late, I will not be taking videos or photos. And in this situation, most will ask "I am really sorry but I have a flight that leaves in xx minutes. Would you be so kind to let me squeeze through". Not the most desirable favor but most of the time, people will just ask you to go ahead because they themselves have been in this situation before.

But the good news is MH is on time 🤣 (I find airlines to be on time when I don't want them to and delayed when I want them to be on time). Maybe MH can introduce this "flat tire policy" as a goodwill gesture like most American carriers do. If a pax arrives at a check-in desk within 2 hours of desk closure, put them on standby for the next available flight (at least on domestic/regional flights where there are multiple flights a day). American carriers do it for free, but I would imagine pax wouldn't mind paying say RM100/pax if they can get onto their next flight without buying a whole new ticket.

[Robert 0]

23 minutes ago, Craig said:

Not going to add a click to his videos but I assume he's a seasoned traveler and has status. I've only used this service once a while back so I am not sure if they still offer it. Apparently there's an immigration officer at the MH Business Suite (for OWE) check-in. The officer can perform your exit immigration there and you will be escorted through immigration bypassing the queues and escorted through the customs X-Ray too and the agent will usually drop you off at the regional lounge or train station.

And if I am know I am late but not too late, I will not be taking videos or photos. And in this situation, most will ask "I am really sorry but I have a flight that leaves in xx minutes. Would you be so kind to let me squeeze through". Not the most desirable favor but most of the time, people will just ask you to go ahead because they themselves have been in this situation before.

But the good news is MH is on time 🤣 (I find airlines to be on time when I don't want them to and delayed when I want them to be on time). Maybe MH can introduce this "flat tire policy" as a goodwill gesture like most American carriers do. If a pax arrives at a check-in desk within 2 hours of desk closure, put them on standby for the next available flight (at least on domestic/regional flights where there are multiple flights a day). American carriers do it for free, but I would imagine pax wouldn't mind paying say RM100/pax if they can get onto their next flight without buying a whole new ticket.

There was no immigration officer at the Platinum/Suites checkin whenever I've been there (which is many many times) however those in Suites usually get staff to assist getting you through the business class lane. This guy was flying J to Singapore and the queues for departure clearance were huge. He asked one of the immigration staff for help and was directed to Business lane. After queuing there was told off and sent back to the Economy line at the back to start again.

I've experienced this before and was told off for being sent to the business class queue. Another time I was stuck the queue for an hour+ and with minutes to go I organised the 20 people infant of me is that anyone with a flight closing soon got through and the rest waited. Most of the people in front were heading to India or Indonesia and several had issues. At one point the staff in the 4 or 5 open counters stopped or left top deal with issues so nobody was being cleared. 

After becoming a regular customer of the Airport Fast Track service I was able to call them and get instant paid pass to get through if the queues were bad. Thankfully since last year I can use the egates now.

[Craig 0]

Someone at MAHB should probably have a few counters set aside for passengers whose gates are closing. They have this in most airports (although it's mostly for security and not immigration). Don't need to use a ground staff yelling out flights but a TV screen with eligible flights asking them to go to this special lane.

Something doesn't add up if he was indeed flying J to SIN. If he was in J, he should have just used the J immigration instead of being sent back to Y.

[Robert 0]

1 hour ago, Craig said:

Someone at MAHB should probably have a few counters set aside for passengers whose gates are closing. They have this in most airports (although it's mostly for security and not immigration). Don't need to use a ground staff yelling out flights but a TV screen with eligible flights asking them to go to this special lane.

Something doesn't add up if he was indeed flying J to SIN. If he was in J, he should have just used the J immigration instead of being sent back to Y.

sorry Craig its was a typo by me because it was Y to SG hence the long queue

[Craig 0]

Mavcom is taking a regressive step towards standardizing PSC at airports around Malaysia.. Mavcom is splitting KUL T1 and T2's PSC into 2 tiers again beginning 1 June 2024. KUL T1 will incur RM73 for all international flights where as KUL T2 + all other airports (except JHB) will incur RM50 for all flights (ASEAN or outside ASEAN will share the same PSC). Departure from JHB will incur RM16 for domestic and RM50 for international. 

It appears that MH will be the biggest loser here. Departure levy is charged based on first international destination (SQ, TG etc. will have lower departure levy compared to MH for say a KUL-LHR/HKG route) and PSC will be much higher for MH than AK/D7 ex-KUL. 

They should have grouped it as KUL (T1 & T2) and non-KUL. Out the door MH is already at a disadvantage of RM27 for all ex-KUL pax and RM13 for all transfer pax at KUL.

Edited March 12 by Craig

[JuliusWong 0]

14 hours ago, Craig said:

Mavcom is taking a regressive step towards standardizing PSC at airports around Malaysia.. Mavcom is splitting KUL T1 and T2's PSC into 2 tiers again beginning 1 June 2024. KUL T1 will incur RM73 for all international flights where as KUL T2 + all other airports (except JHB) will incur RM50 for all flights (ASEAN or outside ASEAN will share the same PSC). Departure from JHB will incur RM16 for domestic and RM50 for international. 

It appears that MH will be the biggest loser here. Departure levy is charged based on first international destination (SQ, TG etc. will have lower departure levy compared to MH for say a KUL-LHR/HKG route) and PSC will be much higher for MH than AK/D7 ex-KUL. 

They should have grouped it as KUL (T1 & T2) and non-KUL. Out the door MH is already at a disadvantage of RM27 for all ex-KUL pax and RM13 for all transfer pax at KUL.

Gain some, lose some, can't satisfy everyone, unfortunately.

Hopefully with this revision, MAHB has no more excuses for less than stellar customer experience when they use KLIA Terminal 1. The Anjung Tinjau is in a mess now. The mini Kidzania occupied the whole right side, and was not in operation at all last week when I was travelling through. Left side is occupied by Tabung Haji, which I can still make do with. They placed the coffee and drinks machine...arggh.....so messy.

[jahur 0]

From the looks of it the funds collected to be also partly used to recuperate MAHB self financed expansion involving PEN and BKI which was reported to be combined MYR 3.0bil +- and still pending tender evaluation. Federal is no longer financing any improvement or expansion of second tier airport sized except for the smaller ones like TWU, KBR.

[jani 0]

16 hours ago, Craig said:

Departure levy is charged based on first international destination (SQ, TG etc. will have lower departure levy compared to MH for say a KUL-LHR/HKG route) 

Mind explaining this part? Not sure I understand

[Craig 0]

21 minutes ago, jani said:

Mind explaining this part? Not sure I understand

I believe it was 2019 that the then PH government introduced the departure levy after swapping GST for SST (because GST casts a wider net compared to SST and there was significant shortfall). This is supposed to mimic UK's APD. It's supposed to be based on the passenger's final destination (e.g. TG's KUL-BKK-HKG departure levy should be the same as KUL-HKG on MH/CX/AK) rather than the first international destination. I have seen fares where it was calculated based on the first international destination instead of the final even though it's a <24H transit at the ASEAN city.

[jani 0]

42 minutes ago, Craig said:

I believe it was 2019 that the then PH government introduced the departure levy after swapping GST for SST (because GST casts a wider net compared to SST and there was significant shortfall). This is supposed to mimic UK's APD. It's supposed to be based on the passenger's final destination (e.g. TG's KUL-BKK-HKG departure levy should be the same as KUL-HKG on MH/CX/AK) rather than the first international destination. I have seen fares where it was calculated based on the first international destination instead of the final even though it's a <24H transit at the ASEAN city.

Ah, okay. I was confused between the PSC and Departure Levy.

MH indeed are the biggest losers. I liked their sarcastic argument a few years back saying they should move to KLIA2 as well

[Craig 0]

20 hours ago, jani said:

MH indeed are the biggest losers. I liked their sarcastic argument a few years back saying they should move to KLIA2 as well

Along with OD. OD would be much easier to move to T2 than MH lol although they do have a few connecting partners at T1.

[Al Khaymi 0]

Been awhile since I last flew into KLIA, so some advise needed.

We'll be arriving in from MYY on MH2585 at 2240hrs and have a connecting SV831 flight the very next morning at 0640. Unfotunately, flight bookings are separate as we can't seem to get the exact flights online/travel agents.

Thinking of booking the SamaSama express (airside) so the kids can have some rest.

But due to separate flight bookings, what's the possibility of the check in agent at MYY able to tag our bags through all the way to MED? If not a possibility, can we go directly to the hotel, have a rest, check out  hotel at 0400, clear immigration and collect our bags at lost and found and straight to Saudia counter? Or do you guys can think of a better option for us?

Edited March 14 by Al Khaymi

[Pall 0]

2 hours ago, Al Khaymi said:

Been awhile since I last flew into KLIA, so some advise needed.

We'll be arriving in from MYY on MH2585 at 2240hrs and have a connecting SV831 flight the very next morning at 0640. Unfotunately, flight bookings are separate as we can't seem to get the exact flights online/travel agents.

Thinking of booking the SamaSama express (airside) so the kids can have some rest.

But due to separate flight bookings, what's the possibility of the check in agent at MYY able to tag our bags through all the way to MED? If not a possibility, can we go directly to the hotel, have a rest, check out  hotel at 0400, clear immigration and collect our bags at lost and found and straight to Saudia counter? Or do you guys can think of a better option for us?

Would suggest you book SamaSama landside instead. Collect bags normally and then check in the next morning at SV counters. Its relatively a short walk/buggy service from domestic arrival to the hotel. 

You wont be able to proceed to SamaSama express airside at the satellite terminal without checking in and clearing immigration.

Unless MYY agent checks in for your SV flight with your bags tagged all the way.