KOTA KINABALU, March 25 — Sabah Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Satta) and the Sabah Economy Advisory Council (Seac) will be holding regular meetings with Malaysia Airport Berhad (MAB) management in order to address issues at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA).

Satta chairman Datuk Seri Winston Liaw said that the public who have experienced issues at KKIA can contact him or Seac representative Datuk John Lo so they can bring the matter up during the meetings.

Liaw in a statement on Saturday said that the decision to hold the regular meetings was made during a meeting with the MAB KKIA management team yesterday.

Also present at the meeting were Lo with Seac members Datuk NK Foo, Abdul Eahman Tahir and Dzulkifli Ghulamdin as well as representatives from the Immigration and Customs Departments.

“We raised to the attention of airport manager, Jefry Ramli issues about the toilet, immigration clearance, aerobridge availability and baggage delivery to the arrival hall. There should be at least one cleaner assigned to each toilet in the airport and the floors and wash basins must be kept dry at all times.

“We urged that the immigration area be lit up well and that the green lane be opened up in order to ease the traffic of passengers queuing in the red lane for customs clearance,” Liaw said.

According to him, Jafry disclosed during the meeting that KKIA has a capacity of nine million passengers and in 2019 reached 9.4 million arrivals resulting in congestion at the airport.

In 2022, passenger arrivals were five million with domestic arrivals at 90 per cent while international arrivals only 30 per cent, he said adding that direct international arrivals include passengers traveling on Jin Air, Air Busan, Jeju Air, Scoot Tiger Air, AirAsia, Royal Brunei Airlines and China Southern Airlines.

Liaw said that they also informed Jafry about the incident involving passengers of a flight from Bangkok on March 17 who were stranded behind a locked door and unable to proceed to immigration clearance.

“We urge all airlines to check the flight schedule and must attend to the flight arrivals at the aerobridge at least 15 minutes prior to arrival time and deliver the baggage to the arrival hall turnstiles in less than 20 minutes from the time the aircraft door opened.

“We also proposed an extension to the airport which can accommodate another 10 bays in anticipation of the surge in passenger arrivals in the next few years. We also proposed that a multi-storey car park with a mall that houses restaurants, hotel, clinics, reflexology, SPA and transit lounge facilities be constructed as KKIA is the second busiest airport in Malaysia and it deserves international standard to uphold the image of Sabah,” he said. — Borneo Post

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2023/03/25/sabah-economy-advisory-council-and-satta-to-hold-regular-meetings-to-resolve-issues-at-kota-kinabalu-international-airport/61499