LETTER | Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) was officially inaugurated on June 27, 1998, almost a year after the Asian financial crisis struck in July 1997.

The first Visit Malaysia Year was in 1990, followed closely by the second in 1994 and our economy was booming. Jobs were plentiful, salaries and increments shot up, and staff of stock-broking firms received astronomical bonuses.

In its early days, KLIA won numerous awards from international organisations such as Skytrax and the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

It was thrice voted as the World's Best Airport in the 15-25 million passengers per annum category for the 2005 AETRA awards and in 2006 and 2007 for ACI-ASQ awards.

After that, KLIA started to tumble and was ranked 24 in 2016 by Skytrax. It nosedived to 34 last year and plunged to 44 this year. Now, its website shows achievements more than 10 years ago.

In 2003, then acting prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi aptly described the Malaysian malaise as “First World infrastructure, Third World mentality”.

Unlike many airports around the world that are continuously upgraded, KLIA is now looking more like an old bungalow with odds and ends strewn all over the place. The sight may look familiar and feel comforting to the airport’s management, but chaotic to passengers passing through, and an utter mess to the experts.

Outsiders with a fresh pair of eyes could easily notice what in-house personnel fail to see. These shortcomings are easily spotted by seasoned travellers used to better facilities at other airports,

If Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB), the management of KLIA, does not wish to engage the service of mystery shoppers, it could run monthly contests for the best suggestions to improve services.

If not, organised chaos could be a grand scheme of things to benefit a few.
In December 2017, some 600 officers from the immigration department were transferred out of KLIA, as the crooks among them were working with criminal syndicates smuggling in workers from Bangladesh.

Four months earlier, a customs superintendent and five assistant superintendents stationed at KLIA's baggage scanning unit, export unit, passenger clearance unit and the customs mail and courier unit were nabbed by a federal police CID team.

They were found to have colluded with a notorious gang infamous for its involvement in drug processing, trafficking and other illegal activities.
The fact that touts had been operating at KLIA from inception has much to do with police personnel stationed there.

The most comical incident must have been in 2006 when two KLIA police personnel were putting up posters “Beware of touts” inside the arrival hall, while a tout was operating freely inside the restricted area.

From outside the arrival hall, tourist guides and limousine drivers could only watch the tout, formally dressed in a dark jacket and wearing a lanyard with a name tag of a well-known travel association, approaching one passenger after another.

MAHB conveniently points fingers at enforcement agencies such as the police, customs and immigration for problems encountered by airport users, making little effort to stamp out touting.

Closed circuit television cameras must have captured the image of all touts operating in its front yard for action to be taken. The least it could do is to project the mugshot of touts on a large screen or wall. Realising they are under watch would send them scurrying away like rats.

But many MAHB officers are focused on more lucrative pursuits. On Aug 5, a 56-year old executive officer was detained by the MACC for suspected graft totalling RM36,500 in the approval of airport rental spaces at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport.

The next day, a 59-year old executive officer was arrested for receiving between RM500 and RM2,000 monthly in bribes as an inducement to approve a company's leasing of a commercial lot at the foyer of Penang International Airport from 2011 to 2014.

On the same day, a 50-year old MAHB manager was arrested at Selangor MACC office for getting monthly bribes of between RM500 and RM10,000 from a jewellery company between 2006 to 2014. The total amount involved is believed to be about RM90,000.

At the same time, a 55-year old executive officer was arrested at the Labuan MAHB office, also for getting monthly kickbacks over the rental of business space. These arrests showed the extent of corruption within MAHB was not isolated but nationwide.

Perhaps it is a good time for MAHB to redeem itself. One of the ways is to facilitate thousands of transit passengers to leave the satellite building at KLIA for some sightseeing and shopping, instead of them staying put inside the airport for many hours.

About 10 years ago, the Express Rail Link (ERL) Sdn Bhd hired several batches of fresh graduates and trained them to convince passengers at the satellite building that it is perfectly safe and enjoyable to take the KLIA Ekspres to the city for sightseeing, shopping or dinner.

Today, this self-guided Kuala Lumpur Transit Tour, priced at RM130, includes return tickets on the KLIA Ekspres to KL Sentral and a one-day pass on the KL Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour.

MAHB could also invite local tour operators to offer free bus tours to transit passengers at the satellite building and join other airports such as Singapore’s Changi, Doha’s Hamad, Seoul’s Incheon, Taipei’s Taoyuan, Tokyo’s Narita and Istanbul’s Ataturk in offering free tours.

Local tour operators would be able to recover their costs by introducing some shopping elements and tourists would be happy to buy when they could pay less for the same quality products. Malaysia is a shopping paradise as visitors spent more on shopping than anything else.

Those who enjoyed the great sightseeing tours around Putrajaya or Kuala Lumpur are likely to return in future for overnight stays, including at other destinations in the country. Not doing anything to entice transit passengers, who are a captive audience, would be an opportunity lost.

KLIA can be among the top airports if corruption is stamped out and all parties are sincere and focused on improving services for its users.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.