KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 — Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) handled three million passengers in KL International Airport (KLIA) during the 12-day Chinese New Year (CNY) peak travel period from Feb 14 to 25, 2018 smoothly.

In a statement here today, MAHB said, the daily average passenger movements soared from 160,000 during normal periods to 250,000 this CNY.

"We continue to show visible improvements at the operational level despite the surge in passenger numbers.

"Daily airport operational efficiencies for the various improvement plans lined up to address 24 touch points, including baggage flow, immigration queuing time and public amenities such as toilets, in a passenger’s journey were also tested at both KLIA terminals,” it said.

Managing Director, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, said many initiatives aimed at enhancing passenger comfort level were planned and carried out during the recent CNY period as the airport anticipated the increase in passenger movements would also result in heavy usage of the various facilities.

"One initiative was to ensure that our baggage handling system (BHS) was in top form. We put in 33 additional staff to monitor and ensure that airline check-in staff were handling the checked-in baggage properly.

"This is important to avoid mishandled baggage that will cause disruption to the conveyor system. Additionally, we had ten extra staff during the day shift and five during the night shift to handle any baggage overflow in the system,” he said.

Badlisham said MAHB also provided comprehensive refresher and familiarisation training sessions to more than 1,000 airline ground handlers, while penalties were also imposed on any handlers who failed to follow BHS standard operating procedures.

Manpower for baggage handlers was in full force, he said, and there were nearly 800 baggage handlers on duty during the CNY period, he said.

"As a result, one of the most visible improvements seen during the period was the drop in the percentage of mishandled baggage rate from 0.07 per cent in January to 0.03 per cent in February. This meant that there was smoother and faster baggage delivery during the CNY period,” he said.

He said MAHB handled 1.3 million baggage during this time so it was really important for us to minimise potential issues that may be faced by passengers because every little detail matters.

Since the beginning of the year, MAHB said, it embarked on a year-long series of improvement initiatives for its facilities and services at KLIA,” he said. — Bernama