No more handwritten boarding passes, Rayani Air promises after uproar over fiasco

KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — Rayani Air said today that it will stop issuing handwritten boarding passes amid a government investigation into potential security threats when a passenger recently received such a document.

However, the local airline which prides itself as Shariah-compliant also defended the handwritten passes that had provoked public scrutiny, saying were written on Rayani Air’s official thermal paper, the same material used for its usual boarding pass, with the company logo on the top left corner.

“The said handwritten boarding pass format is identical as a printed boarding pass; only handwritten,” it said in a statement.

“Nevertheless, Rayani Air have come up with a solution to solve this issue. The company will not issue any manually handwritten boarding pass with immediate effect. Hence, passengers will only be receiving printed boarding pass for their respective flight,” the airline added.

Rayani Air sought to explain the incident that led to the issuance of the handwritten passes.

According to it, handwritten passes were issued to passengers on Flight RN154 who checked in after midnight on March 19 the usual printed versions could not be made in time due to backdated details of the initial flight time.

Flight RN154 was scheduled to depart at 11.30pm on March 18, but was delayed to 5am the next day.

“Adding to that, manual boarding passes were issued to tally with the number of passengers on the flight manifest.

“This act of reconciliation is needed to determine the actual number of passenger as some passenger(s) chose to cancel their flight on RN154 and flights merged during that period,” Rayani Air said.

The airline also added that the same flight, from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching, Sarawak, was delayed because of a hydraulic leak.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said Monday that Rayani Air was under investigation over its handwritten boarding passes and warned the airline that it may even be suspended.

Rayani Air came under scrutiny after Kampung Tunku assemblyman Lau Weng San posted a picture of his handwritten boarding pass from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching that subsequently went viral on social media.