(Petaling Jaya, Monday): Malaysia Airports (Sepang) Sdn. Bhd’s excuse for the first Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) flood on Saturday is self-serving and unacceptable. We should have a work culture where such a mishap should never have been allowed to happen at all!
If the sophisticated RM9 billion KLIA, dubbed as "the airport of the next century", could be flooded after an hour of heavy downpour, to the extent that if there had been another 15 -30 minutes of downpour, all access to the depature terminals would have been completely cut off - something is very wrong with the construction and management of the KLIA.
I shudder to think of the adverse international publicity if the KLIA is cut off by floods, especially during the SUKOM next month.
Malaysia Airports (Sepang) Sdn. Bhd’s explanation for the first flood at KLIA was a clogged drain which caused a one-metre high flood along the road leading to the KLIA terminal. The head of the airport operations Azmi Murad said the drain was clogged by silt and grass from landscaping work on both sides of the drain.
The KLIA flood resulted in many passengers missing their flights as well as great inconvenience to passengers because of the long distance they had to walk to rush to their respective departure lounges so as not to miss their flights.
I call on the Malaysia Airports (Sepang) Sdn. Bhd. to consider ways to make the KLIA really passenger-friendly, particularly in reducing hardships faced by the sick, elderly and children in having to walk unusually long distances for domestic flights whether to embark or disembark.
(10/8/98)